CVE-2019-1649 Cisco Secure Boot Hardware Tampering Vulnerability
An authenticated local attacker with elevated privileges can tamper with Secure Boot firmware, potentially installing malicious images or bricking the device.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2019-1649?
CVE-2019-1649 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Cisco Ios, published on 13 May 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A vulnerability in the logic that handles access control to one of the hardware components in Cisco's proprietary Secure Boot implementation could allow an authenticated, local attacker to write a modified firmware image to the component. This vulnerability affects multiple Cisco products that support hardware-based Secure Boot functionality. The vulnerability is due to an improper check on the area of code that manages on-premise updates to a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) part of the Secure Boot hardware implementation. An attacker with elevated privileges and access to the underlying operating system that is running on the affected device could exploit this vulnerability by writing a modified firmware image to the FPGA. A successful exploit could either cause the device to become unusable (and require a hardware replacement) or allow tampering with the Secure Boot verification process, which under some circumstances may allow the attacker to install and boot a malicious software image. An attacker will need to fulfill all the following conditions to attempt to exploit this vulnerability: Have privileged administrative access to the device. Be able to access the underlying operating system running on the device; this can be achieved either by using a supported, documented mechanism or by exploiting another vulnerability that would provide an attacker with such access. Develop or have access to a platform-specific exploit. An attacker attempting to exploit this vulnerability across multiple affected platforms would need to research each one of those platforms and then develop a platform-specific exploit. Although the research process could be reused across different platforms, an exploit developed for a given hardware platform is unlikely to work on a different hardware platform.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-1649?
It affects 27 products.
Products include Cisco 15454-M-Wse-K9 Firmware, Cisco Analog Voice Network Interface Modules Firmware, Cisco Asa 5500 Firmware, Cisco Asr 1000 Series Firmware, Cisco Asr 1001 Firmware, Cisco Catalyst 9800-40 Wireless Controller Firmware and 21 more.
How do I fix CVE-2019-1649?
No fix has been published for CVE-2019-1649 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2019-1649 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-1649 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-8p3x-34c5-5pmx.