CVE-2021-1447: Cisco Content Security Management Appliance Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.7 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2021-05-06 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-269

Description

A vulnerability in the user account management system of Cisco AsyncOS for Cisco Content Security Management Appliance (SMA) could allow an authenticated, local attacker to elevate their privileges to root. This vulnerability is due to a procedural flaw in the password generation algorithm. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by enabling specific Administrator-only features and connecting to the appliance through the CLI with elevated privileges. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands as root and access the underlying operating system. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have valid Administrator credentials.

Affected products

Cisco Content Security Management Appliance (SMA): before 12.8.1-002; from 13.0.0-249 before 13.8.1-068 — fixed in 12.8.1-002, 13.8.1-068

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Cisco Content Security Management Appliance (SMA) 12.8.1-002, 13.8.1-068. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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