An attacker could possibly take control of a company’s security system and run arbitrary code because of a flaw in Cisco Systems Inc.’s Secure Access Control Server (ACS) for Windows servers.
The Secure ACS, which controls such things as routers in large networks, firewalls and wireless networks, was found to have the buffer overflow after the China-based Network Security (NS) Focus Information Technology team discovered the glitch. Cisco subsequently issued a security advisory on Wednesday, followed by a similar advisory from the NSFocus team.
The buffer overflow vulnerability can cause service to hang or to restart, the NSFocus advisory said. “With carefully crafted data [an] attacker could run arbitrary code with CSAdmin process privilege on the server.”
The hacker could potentially seize control of the Cisco service when it’s running on Windows.
“Exploitation of this vulnerability results in denial of service, and can potentially result in system administrator access,” Cisco said in its advisory.
Cisco is providing repair software and customers are recommended to install patches or upgrade at their earliest possibility, Cisco said. Patch files are currently available on the company’s Web site and customers can download the fixes at www.cisco.com/pcgi-bin/tablebuild.pl/cs-acs-win.
Versions of the ACS affected by the vulnerability include 2.6.4, 3.0.3 and 3.1.1.
Cisco is online at www.cisco.com. The advisory can be found at www.cisco.com/warp/public/707/cisco-sa-20030423-ACS.shtml.