CVE-2021-1594
Published: 06 October 2021
Summary
CVE-2021-1594 is a high-severity Incorrect Privilege Assignment (CWE-266) vulnerability in Cisco Identity Services Engine. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, ranked at the 34.8th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2021-7061
Vulnerability details
A vulnerability in the REST API of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to perform a command injection attack and elevate privileges to root. This vulnerability is due to insufficient input validation for specific API…
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endpoints. An attacker in a man-in-the-middle position could exploit this vulnerability by intercepting and modifying specific internode communications from one ISE persona to another ISE persona. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to run arbitrary commands with root privileges on the underlying operating system. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker would need to decrypt HTTPS traffic between two ISE personas that are located on separate nodes.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Designation of a manager and policy dissemination ensures privileges are assigned according to defined roles.
Regular reviews catch incorrect privilege assignments to users, roles, or processes.
Explicitly specifying privileges and group/role memberships for accounts reduces the risk of incorrect privilege assignments.
The control requires explicit definition of separated access authorizations, making incorrect privilege assignments that bundle conflicting duties harder to implement.
Ensures privileges are assigned only as necessary rather than incorrectly over-granted.
Platform-independent apps typically execute inside a managed runtime or sandbox that restricts direct OS command execution, reducing the ability to exploit OS command injection.
Validates inputs to block special elements that would alter OS command execution.