CVE-2017-6781· NVD / CVE Program· CNA cisco

A vulnerability in the management of shell user accounts for Cisco Policy Suite (CPS) Software for CPS appliances could allow an authenticat

A vulnerability in the management of shell user accounts for Cisco Policy Suite (CPS) Software for CPS appliances could allow an authenticated, local attacker to gain elevated privileges on an affected system. The affected privilege level is not at the root level. The vulnerability is due to incorrect role-based access control (RBAC) for shell user accounts. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to an affected appliance and providing crafted user input via the CLI. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to acquire a higher privilege level than should have been granted. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must log in to the appliance with valid credentials. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCve37724. Known Affected Releases: 9.0.0, 9.1.0, 10.0.0, 11.0.0, 12.0.0.

MediumCVSS 5.3 · v3.0—No exploit No fix recorded

Published: Aug 17, 2017
Updated: Jun 16, 2026
EPSS: 0.3% · 15th percentile
CWE: CWE-287

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Action score

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS: 21 / 40 · 5.3 / 10
CISA KEV: 0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS: 0 / 30 · 0.3%

Affected systems

Vendor	Product	CPE
cisco	policy suite	cpe:2.3:a:cisco:policy_suite

Affected versions

NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.

cisco policy suite10.0.0
cisco policy suite11.0.0
cisco policy suite12.0.0
cisco policy suite9.0.0
cisco policy suite9.1.0

Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (cisco). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

Cisco Systems, Inc. Policy Suite
- 9.0.0, 9.1.0, 10.0.0, 11.0.0, 12.0.0affected

Same product

cisco: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

CVE-2021-40119Cisco Policy Suite Static SSH Keys Vulnerability
40Plan
CVE-2017-6623A vulnerability in a script file that is installed as part of the Cisco Policy Suite (CPS) Software distribution for the CPS appliance could
31Monitor
CVE-2018-0089A vulnerability in the Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) of the Cisco Policy Suite (CPS) could allow an unauthenticated, remote atta
30Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

No fix version is recorded for this entry. Check the references for vendor advisories.

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

No dated events beyond publication.

EPSS, last 120 days

FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

No commit or PR link among the references.

Credits

All researchers

Finders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.

No credits in the CNA record.

Variant candidates

Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.

No nightly-computed relations.

Chain candidates

An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.

—

Bug bounty scope

No known public program.

Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).

Technical details

Attack conditions

Someone with local access to the system can trigger it.
A low-privileged account is enough.
No user action is required.
No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.

If successful

Confidentiality: low · data can be read
Integrity: low · data or configuration can be modified
Availability: low · the service can be disrupted

Attack vector: Local
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: Low
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality impact: Low
Integrity impact: Low
Availability impact: Low

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-287 · Improper Authentication

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

nvd-primary

Root cause

Authentication is added route by route instead of being enforced in one place. When a route added later bypasses the shared middleware, the session check never runs for it.

The bug in code

The whole CWE-287 class

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

Vulnerable

1app.use("/admin", requireSession, adminRouter);2
3// Route added later skips the middleware4app.post("/admin-api/config", updateConfig);

Fixed

1const admin = express.Router();2admin.use(requireSession, requireRole("admin"));3
4admin.post("/config", updateConfig);5app.use("/admin", admin);

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

Attack patterns (CAPEC)

ATT&CK techniques

Noroxi analysis

No Noroxi analysis for this record yet

We don't hand-write analysis for all 385,000+ vulnerabilities; that wouldn't be honest. For notable, high-impact vulnerabilities our team writes the mechanism, detection and remediation steps.

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Change log

No changes recorded on tracked fields yet. Score, KEV, exploit maturity and fix status changes appear here.

References

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

All records