Secure Access Control ServerHardware / appliance · Cisco
CVE-2011-3293
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedMultiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in the Solution Engine in Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS) 5.2 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators for requests that insert cross-site scripting (XSS) sequences, aka Bug ID CSCtr78143.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceThis CVE describes CSRF vulnerabilities in Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS) 5.2 Solution Engine that allow remote attackers to hijack administrator sessions and inject malicious XSS sequences. The attack succeeds because the application lacks proper anti-CSRF protections, enabling crafted requests to be executed with an authenticated administrator's credentials.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
Secure Access Control ServerHardware / appliance
= 5.2CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- M
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Partial
- Integrity
- Partial
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify Cisco ACS versionAccess the ACS administrative interface or check the system version via the CLI command 'show version' or through the web UI dashboard. Look for the exact version number displayed.Affected if The version displayed is exactly 5.2 (no patch applied)
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Verify ACS solution engine deploymentConfirm the installation is the Solution Engine appliance variant, not a software-only installation on a general OS.Affected if The product is Cisco Secure Access Control Server 5.2 Solution Engine specifically
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Confirm admin web interface accessibilityAccess the ACS web admin interface at the default HTTPS port (typically 443 or 8080) and verify it loads the ACS 5.2 login page.Affected if The administrative web interface is reachable and shows ACS 5.2 authentication page
If the installed Cisco ACS version is exactly 5.2 with no patches applied, the environment lacks anti-CSRF protections and is vulnerable to session hijacking and XSS injection attacks.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataApply Cisco-provided patches for CSCtr78143 to ACS 5.2, or migrate to a supported ACS version as version 5.2 is end-of-life. Implement anti-CSRF tokens in all administrative forms as an interim control.
Fix this in Secure Access Control Server
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $6,176.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2011-3293 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2011-3293 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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