Critical Cisco Flaw Exposes Industrial Devices to Remote Attacks

Cisco has issued an urgent warning about a critical vulnerability, CVE-2024-20418, affecting its Ultra-Reliable Wireless Backhaul (URWB) systems. This flaw, found in the Unified Industrial Wireless Software, allows a remote attacker with no prior access to escalate privileges to an admin level. By sending specially crafted HTTP requests to the management interface, attackers can execute commands with root privileges, potentially compromising the underlying operating system.

The devices affected include the Catalyst IW9165D Heavy Duty Access Points, Catalyst IW9165E Rugged Access Points and Wireless Clients, and Catalyst IW9167E Heavy Duty Access Points. Cisco urges users to check if URWB is enabled by using the show mpls-config command and to apply the available patch immediately, as there is no current workaround.

With a maximum CVSS score of 10.0, this vulnerability is both straightforward to exploit and highly dangerous, especially given its use in critical infrastructure settings like ports and industrial facilities. While there are no confirmed cases of the flaw being exploited in the wild, Cisco advises rapid action to secure impacted devices.

Source: The Register

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