How big is the risk? Cisco ISE is often used as a wireless authentication system, Frost pointed out, which frequently includes guest network portals, and it’s also likely integrated into Microsoft Active Directory as a highly trusted system. It is also used to authenticate access to the administration layers of routers, switches, firewalls, and other network devices — and it can be used as a network access control (NAC) product.
‘One of the worst I’ve seen’
“This is probably one of the worst [flaws] I have seen in terms of impact,” said Kellman Meghu, principal security architect at DeepCove Cybersecurity. “It is a path for an unauthenticated, remote attacker to gain the highest-level privilege possible, so I am not even sure how it gets much worse that this, and then it does.”
“This is most serious for companies that are failing to perform the proper security hygiene,” said Robert Beggs, CEO of Canadian incident response firm Digital Defence.
