A major vulnerability in Cisco’s Built-in Administration Controller (IMC) that permits malicious actors to realize elevated privileges and entry inner providers with out correct authorization.
This vulnerability poses substantial dangers to enterprise networks counting on Cisco’s server administration infrastructure, doubtlessly enabling attackers to compromise important methods and delicate knowledge.
Cisco IMC Privilege Escalation Flaw
The Cisco IMC vulnerability (CVE-2025-20261), categorised as a privilege escalation flaw, exploits weaknesses within the authentication and authorization mechanisms throughout the administration controller’s net interface.
Attackers can leverage improper enter validation and inadequate entry controls to bypass safety restrictions and execute instructions with administrative privileges.
The vulnerability impacts the RESTful API endpoints used for system configuration and monitoring, permitting unauthorized customers to control server settings and entry restricted functionalities.
Technical evaluation reveals that the exploit targets the /redfish/v1/ API endpoints, the place inadequate session validation permits attackers to escalate their privileges by means of crafted HTTP requests.
The vulnerability manifests when the IMC fails to correctly validate consumer credentials towards role-based entry management (RBAC) insurance policies, significantly in eventualities involving JSON Net Token (JWT) manipulation and session hijacking strategies.
The exploitation of this vulnerability can have far-reaching penalties for organizations utilizing affected Cisco IMC methods.
Attackers gaining elevated privileges can entry the Baseboard Administration Controller (BMC) functionalities, enabling them to change BIOS settings, entry out-of-band administration interfaces, and doubtlessly set up persistent firmware-level malware.
This stage of entry bypasses conventional safety controls and may present attackers with a foothold for lateral motion throughout the community infrastructure.
The vulnerability significantly threatens knowledge heart environments the place Cisco UCS (Unified Computing System) servers are deployed.
Attackers exploiting this flaw can entry the Cisco Built-in Administration Controller’s IPMI (Clever Platform Administration Interface) features, permitting them to observe system well being, entry digital media providers, and doubtlessly intercept delicate knowledge transmitted by means of the administration community.
Danger FactorsDetailsAffected ProductsCisco Built-in Administration Controller (IMC)(together with Cisco UCS C-Collection and Cisco UCS S-Collection)ImpactRemote attackers to realize elevated (admin) privilegesExploit Conditions– Community entry to the IMC administration interface- No prior authentication required (will be exploited remotely underneath particular configurations)CVSS 3.1 Score9.8 (Vital)
Mitigation Methods
Organizations using affected Cisco IMC methods ought to instantly implement complete safety measures to mitigate the dangers related to this vulnerability.
Major mitigation includes updating to the newest firmware variations that handle the authentication bypass and privilege escalation flaws.
Community directors ought to configure correct community segmentation to isolate administration interfaces from manufacturing networks and implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all administrative entry.
Extra safety hardening measures embody disabling pointless providers on the IMC interface, implementing strict firewall guidelines to limit entry to TCP ports 80, 443, and 623 (used for IPMI over LAN), and recurrently auditing consumer accounts with administrative privileges.
Organizations also needs to monitor for suspicious actions of their Safety Data and Occasion Administration (SIEM) methods, significantly specializing in uncommon API calls to /api/ endpoints and unauthorized entry makes an attempt to the web-based administration interface.
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