A vulnerability in a diagnostic command for the Plug-and-Play (PnP) subsystem of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to elevate privileges to the level of an Administrator user (level 15) on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to insufficient protection of sensitive information. An attacker with low privileges could exploit this vulnerability by issuing the diagnostic CLI show pnp profile when a specific PnP listener is enabled on the device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to obtain a privileged authentication token. This token can be used to send crafted PnP messages and execute privileged commands on the targeted system.

References

• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-1442
• https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-ios-xe-pnp-priv-esc-AmG3kuVL