Attacks Against Cisco Firewall Platforms

Uploaded on 2024-05-02 in TECHNOLOGY--Hackers, NEWS-Cybersecurity News, FREE TO VIEW, BUSINESS-Services-IT & Telecoms

In early 2024, the Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) became aware of zero-day attacks that were targeting certain devices that were running Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software or Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software to implant malware, execute commands, and potentially exfiltrate data from the compromised devices.

A zero-day exploit is the technique or attack a malicious actor deploys to leverage an unknown security vulnerability to gain access into a system.

This attack campaign has been named ArcaneDoor and although Cisco has not yet identified the initial attack vector, the software updates that are identified in the advisories in the following table address software weaknesses that could allow an attacker to implant malware and obtain persistence on an affected device.

Of these software weaknesses, CVE-2024-20353 and CVE-2024-20359 were used by the attacker in this attack campaign to deliver custom malware and facilitate covert data collection on target environments. Cisco strongly recommends that all customers upgrade to fixed software versions.

Cisco Talos, which has named the activity ArcaneDoor, attributed it as the work of a previously undocumented sophisticated state-sponsored actor it tracks under the name UAT4356 (aka Storm-1849 by Microsoft). Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has also published a joint advisory and 2 malware analysis Reports and to help network defenders detect and mitigate malicious activity associated with these vulnerabilities.

Cisco has published details of three vulnerabilities affecting its ASA and FTD devices:

CVE-2024-20353: A vulnerability in the management and VPN web servers for Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) software could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to cause the device to reload unexpectedly, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition.

CVE-2024-20358: A vulnerability in the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) restore functionality available in Cisco ASA Software and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) software could allow an authenticated local attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system with root-level privileges. Administrator-level privileges are required to exploit this vulnerability.

CVE-2024-20359: A vulnerability in a legacy capability that allowed for the preloading of VPN clients and plug-ins which has been available in Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) software could allow an authenticated local attacker to execute arbitrary code with root-level privileges. Administrator-level privileges are required to exploit this vulnerability.

While the second flaw allows a local attacker to execute arbitrary code with root-level privileges, administrator-level privileges are required to exploit it. Addressed alongside CVE-2024-20353 and CVE-2024-20359 is a command injection flaw in the same appliance that was uncovered during internal security testing.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA has now included the shortcomings to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue, requiring federal agencies to apply the vendor-provided fixes by May 1, 2024.

The NCSC recommends following vendor best practice advice to mitigate these vulnerabilities. In this case, if you use Cisco ASA or Cisco FTD, you should take these priority actions:

Monitor the vendor advisory and install the security update once it is available for your version.

Carry out continuous monitoring and threat hunting activities.

If you believe you have been compromised, you should contact Cisco and if you are in the UK you should also inform the NCSC.

Only organisations using Cisco ASA or Cisco FTD are at risk. No specific configuration is required. Cisco FTD is only affected by CVE-2024-20358 when lockdown mode is enabled to restrict Linux shell access. Users should note that lockdown mode is disabled by default.

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