first published week of: 08/22/2016
Company advisories further corroborate authenticity of mysterious Shadow Brokers leak.
Cisco Systems has confirmed that recently-leaked malware tied to the National Security Agency exploited a high-severity vulnerability that had gone undetected for years in every supported version of the company's Adaptive Security Appliance firewall.
"It's still a critical vulnerability even though it requires access to the internal or management network, as once exploited it gives the attacker the opportunity to monitor all network traffic, Mustafa Al-Bassam, a security researcher
The previously unknown flaw makes it possible for remote attackers who have already gained a foothold in a targeted network to gain full control over a firewall, Cisco warned in an advisory published Wednesday. The bug poses a significant risk because it allows attackers to monitor and control all data passing through a vulnerable network. To exploit the vulnerability, an attacker must control a computer already authorized to access the firewall or the firewall must have been misconfigured to omit this standard safeguard.
"It's still a critical vulnerability even though it requires access to the internal or management network, as once exploited it gives the attacker the opportunity to monitor all network traffic," Mustafa Al-Bassam, a security researcher, told Ars. "I wouldn't imagine it would be difficult for the NSA to get access to a device in a large company's internal network, especially if it was a datacenter." continued…