Cisco Warns of High-Severity Unpatched Flaw Affecting IP Phones Firmware

Cisco has launched a new security advisory warning of a large-severity flaw influencing IP Phone 7800 and 8800 Collection firmware that could be perhaps exploited by a distant attacker to trigger remote code execution or a denial-of-assistance (DoS) issue.

The networking tools big stated it is functioning on a patch to deal with the vulnerability, which is tracked as CVE-2022-20968 (CVSS score: 8.1) and stems from a circumstance of insufficient enter validation of received Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) packets.

CDP is a proprietary network-impartial protocol that is applied for amassing data connected to nearby, right related gadgets these as components, computer software, and unit identify, amid other individuals. It can be enabled by default.

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“An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted Cisco Discovery Protocol traffic to an impacted unit,” the corporation said in an inform posted on December 8, 2022.

“A successful exploit could let the attacker to result in a stack overflow, ensuing in feasible remote code execution or a denial of support (DoS) condition on an impacted product.”

Cisco IP phones managing firmware variation 14.2 and before are impacted. A patch is scheduled for launch in January 2023, with the enterprise stating that there are no updates or workarounds to remediate the issue.

Nevertheless, on deployments that assistance the two CDP and Url Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) for neighbor discovery, users can opt to disable CDP so that the impacted units swap to LLDP for promotion their identification and capabilities to directly connected friends in a neighborhood place network (LAN).

“This is not a trivial transform and will demand diligence on behalf of the enterprise to consider any likely impression to devices as effectively as the greatest solution to deploy this adjust in their business,” the business mentioned.

It even more warned that it can be knowledgeable of the availability of a evidence-of-idea (PoC) exploit and that the shortcoming has been publicly disclosed. You will find no proof that the vulnerability has been actively abused in the wild to date.

Qian Chen from the Codesafe Group of Legendsec at Qi’anxin Group has been credited with exploring and reporting the vulnerability.

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