Identity Services Engine SoftwareApplication · Cisco
CVE-2012-3908
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 ISE Administrator user interface (aka the Apache Tomcat interface) on Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) 3300 series appliances before 1.1.0.665 Cumulative Patch 1 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators, aka Bug ID CSCty46684.
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 confidenceMultiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities exist in the ISE Administrator web interface (Apache Tomcat) on Cisco Identity Services Engine 3300 series appliances. These flaws allow remote attackers to trick authenticated administrators into unknowingly executing malicious requests, effectively hijacking their session credentials to perform unauthorized administrative actions.
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
Identity Services Engine SoftwareApplication
= 1.0= 1.0.4= 1.0mr= 1.1= 1.1.1
Identity Services EngineHardware / appliance
= 3300CVSS 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 if Cisco ISE is installedLog into the ISE CLI or access the admin web interface. Run 'show version' in the CLI or check the login page footer for the version number.Affected if The system is running Cisco Identity Services Engine software on a 3300 series appliance.
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Determine the installed ISE versionIn the ISE admin web interface, navigate to Administration > System > Settings > Product Version, or run 'show version' via CLI and note the full version string.Affected if The installed version matches 1.0, 1.0.4, 1.0mr, 1.1, or 1.1.1 exactly.
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Verify the admin web interface is enabledAccess the ISE admin portal URL (typically https://<ise-host>/admin/) in a browser. Confirm the login page loads successfully.Affected if The administrator web interface is accessible and responds, which is required for the CSRF attack vector to be viable.
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Check for anti-CSRF protections in HTTP headersUsing browser developer tools or curl, inspect the HTTP response headers from the ISE admin login page for SameSite cookie attributes and any anti-CSRF token mechanisms.Affected if No SameSite cookie attributes or anti-CSRF token headers are present in the admin interface responses.
The environment is affected if Cisco ISE version 1.0, 1.0.4, 1.0mr, 1.1, or 1.1.1 is installed on a 3300 series appliance and the administrator web interface is accessible without CSRF protections.
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 ISE version 1.1.0.665 Cumulative Patch 1 or later to address the CSRF vulnerabilities. Additionally, implement anti-CSRF tokens and SameSite cookie attributes as defense-in-depth measures.
Fix this in Identity Services Engine Software
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2012-3908 — 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-2012-3908 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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