Issued 25 security patches ... and called for them to be quickly downloaded

"Cisco" warns of 34 vulnerabilities in its systems for operating networks

The discovered attacks allow hackers to launch various attacks, the most prominent of which is "denial of service."

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Cisco called on managers of information infrastructure, and administrators of information networks that operate on the operating systems of "Cisco iOS" and "Cisco IOS Xe", to quickly download and run 25 security updates intended to address and avoid the risks of 34 vulnerabilities. Security discovered in those systems, indicating that the exploited vulnerabilities allow hackers and professional criminals to launch various and successful attacks on networks, most notably the denial of service attacks known as "DOS".

This came in a security warning recently published by the company on the page of the Information Security Center on its website.

Effect

The company clarified that the 34 security flaws affect a wide range of "Cisco" equipment used in building information networks within institutions and companies, such as switches, routers, and "routers" data paths, in addition to access points and others, because they are concentrated in the software in which this equipment works, namely In the two operating systems «Cisco iOS» and «Cisco iOS Xe» most widely used in the company's equipment.

She added that these flaws constitute a gateway to launch successful attacks that bypass firewalls to threaten access points and keys, then access the information network itself, and related servers and peripheral computers.

Dangerous vulnerabilities

The warning indicated that there are three vulnerabilities, classified as a severity of 8.6 degrees on the scale of security risks consisting of 10 degrees, and thus represent very high threats. The first lies in the features and functions of the firewall of the Cisco IOS XE operating system, and may allow an attacker Remote causes the device to reload or stop forwarding of traffic through the firewall, which leads to denial of service.

According to "Cisco", this vulnerability is caused by incomplete handling of Layer 4 security packages across the device, a flaw that allows the attacker to exploit the vulnerability by sending a specific sequence of traffic patterns through the device.

Domain Name Split

Cisco reported that the second vulnerability is a defect in a feature known as "domain name split", which is found in the Cisco iOS and Cisco iOS XE operating systems, and that could allow a remote attacker without authentication and access By reloading the affected device, which leads to a successful denial of service attack, indicating that this vulnerability occurs due to the possibility that the regular expression engine known as "REGEX", which is used with the feature of "domain name split", has expired. The opportunity for the attacker to resolve an address or hostname that the device deals with, then gain access and launch attacks.

Message handler

As for the third vulnerability, "Cisco" explained that it is located in the message processor of the "DHCP" protocol, to remotely deal with the "Cisco IOS XE" system, which manages the routers of data operating on high-capacity and high-speed communication lines, indicating that The vulnerability is due to errors that occur when parsing messages of the fourth version of the "DHCP" protocol, and allows the attacker to send a malicious or malicious message through this protocol to the interface of large-scale information networks, which confuses the affected device, and makes it re-download and start.

Insurance and encryption

"Cisco" also mentioned in its warning several other security vulnerabilities discovered, including a vulnerability in the security and encryption applications operating with the "WPA2" and "WPA3" protocol, inside the component for controlling the "Cisco Catalyst 9000" operating devices. OS XE, which allows an unauthorized attacker to send a synthesized authentication packet to an affected device, restart it and download it, leading to a denial of service and shutdown the network.

This vulnerability is due to incorrect handling during the WPA2 and WPA3 authentication processes.

«Umbrella Delivery»

There is another loophole, which Cisco indicated in its warning that it is located in the component known as the "connection umbrella", inside the "Cisco" Catalyst 9200 "switches, operating with the IOS XE operating system, which allows a remote attacker to reconnect Repeatedly turning on and loading the device, triggering a successful service denial attack.

The reason for the vulnerability is insufficient error handling when analyzing domain name requests, allowing the attacker to send a series of fake domain name requests to the "umbrella connection" component.

Managing the "Web"

Cisco has warned of a loophole affecting the Web management component of the iOS XE operating system, as it allows a remote attacker who has read-only privileges to upgrade his privileges to a level responsible for managing the device, so that He can take full control of the device, stop it, and carry out a successful denial of service attack.