Cisco patches zero-day in NX-OS Nexus swap software program – Cyber Tech

Cisco patched a medium severity zero-day vulnerability within the command line interface (CLI) of the seller’s Nexus working system (NX-OS) software program that might let an attacker with legitimate administrator credentials to the Nexus console execute arbitrary instructions on the underlaying Linux working system.

In a July 1 advisory, Cisco stated in exploiting the vulnerability, an attacker may execute arbitrary instructions of the underlying working system with root privileges. When attackers have root privileges they’ll doubtlessly entry delicate knowledge, management programs and modify recordsdata

Cisco added that its Product Safety Incident Response Crew turned conscious in April from researchers at Sygnia that CVE-2024-20399 was exploited within the wild.

The analysis workforce at Sygnia additionally posted in a July 1 weblog that stated the brand new zero-day vulnerability was recognized as half of a bigger forensic investigation carried out by Sygnia of a China-nexus cyber espionage operation that was performed by a menace actor Sygnia callled  Velvet Ant.

SC Media has beforehand reported that Sygnia discovered that Velvet Ant succeeded in establishing persistence in a company community at a big group for 3 years by exploiting flaws in legacy F5 BigIP load balancers.

“Essentially the most regarding side is that Velvet Ant was in a position to persist on networks for 3 years in earlier campaigns,” stated Narayana Pappu, chief government officer at Zendata. “This underscores the necessity for higher detection and monitoring capabilities. It additionally highlights the position that corporations like Syngia play in catching high-impact threats. Lastly, Cisco Nexus switches are the spine of knowledge middle networks, creating substantial provide chain dangers for a lot of varieties of corporations.”

Venky Raju, Discipline CTO at ColorTokens, added that this vulnerability lets attackers plant themselves inside the enterprise community and change into “insiders.”

“Most companies haven’t carried out ample safeguards in opposition to insider threats, which presents a big threat,” stated Raju. “It is a stark reminder to undertake a zero-trust mindset and implement microsegmentation to reduce lateral motion throughout all the community.”