Cisco issues variety of security warnings on wireless gear

Cisco warned of a variety of vulnerabilities – from letting attackers issue DDOS attack to making devices unexpectedly reload — in some of its wireless access point and LAN gear.

The only critical alert came for vulnerability in Cisco Wave 2 Aironet 1830 Series and Cisco Aironet 1850 Series Access Points.

In those devices, running Cisco Mobility Express Software, a vulnerability could let an unauthenticated, remote attacker take complete control of an affected device, the company stated.

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“The vulnerability is due to the existence of default credentials for an affected device that is running Cisco Mobility Express Software, regardless of whether the device is configured as a master, subordinate, or standalone access point. An attacker who has layer 3 connectivity to an affected device could use Secure Shell (SSH) to log in to the device with elevated privileges. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to take complete control of the device,” Cisco wrote in the warning.

Cisco said it has released software updates to address this vulnerability.

Meanwhile in the “High” warning category Cisco said a vulnerability in the web management interface of Cisco Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) Software could let an unauthenticated, remote attacker cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device.

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“The vulnerability is due to a missing internal handler for the specific request. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by accessing a specific hidden URL on the web management interface. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a reload of the device, resulting in a DoS condition,” Cisco wrote.

An update is available to address this problem Cisco said.

Also in the High warning category Cisco said a vulnerability with IPv6 UDP ingress packet processing in Cisco Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) Software could let an unauthenticated, remote attacker cause an unexpected reload of the device.

“The vulnerability is due to incomplete IPv6 UDP header validation. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted IPv6 UDP packet to a specific port on the targeted device. An exploit could allow the attacker to impact the availability of the device as it could unexpectedly reload,” Cisco wrote.

Cisco has released software updates that address this vulnerability as well.

The final “High” warning is addressed at the 802.11 Wireless Multimedia Extensions (WME) action frame processing in Cisco Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) Software. There a vulnerability could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition.

“The vulnerability is due to incomplete input validation of the 802.11 WME packet header. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending malformed 802.11 WME frames to a targeted device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the WLC to reload unexpectedly,” Cisco wrote.

Cisco has released software updates that address this vulnerability.

The last warning came for a vulnerability in RADIUS Change of Authorization (CoA) request processing in the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller (WLC). This flaw could let an unauthenticated, remote attacker cause a denial of service (DoS) condition by disconnecting a single connection.

Cisco wrote: “The vulnerability is due to lack of proper input validation of the RADIUS CoA packet header. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted RADIUS CoA packet to a targeted device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to disconnect a connection through the WLC unexpectedly,” Cisco wrote.

In this case, there are no workarounds available, Cisco said.