Identity Services Engine SoftwareApplication · Cisco
CVE-2013-3420
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 · uneditedCross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the web framework on the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users, aka Bug ID CSCuh25506.
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 · moderate confidenceCross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Cisco Identity Services Engine web framework allows remote attackers to perform actions on behalf of authenticated users by tricking them into visiting malicious links, effectively hijacking their session authentication.
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
all versions
Identity Services EngineHardware / appliance
all versionsCVSS 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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Confirm Cisco ISE is deployedCheck if the Cisco Identity Services Engine admin interface is accessible on the network. Look for HTTPS responses on port 443 or 8443 that return Cisco ISE login pages.Affected if Cisco ISE admin portal is accessible and responding
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Inspect web form submissions for CSRF tokensLog into the ISE admin interface and examine the HTML source of state-changing forms (e.g., user creation, policy modification). Look for hidden input fields containing anti-CSRF tokens or unique request identifiers in the form markup.Affected if Forms lack anti-CSRF token fields or use predictable/static token values
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Check cookie attributes for SameSite flagUsing browser developer tools or a proxy, capture an authenticated session cookie from the ISE admin interface. Inspect the Set-Cookie headers for the SameSite attribute.Affected if Cookies lack SameSite=Strict or SameSite=Lax attributes
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Verify referer header validationSubmit a state-changing request to the ISE admin interface without a Referer header or with an arbitrary Referer value. Observe if the request is accepted or rejected.Affected if Requests without valid referer headers are processed successfully
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Confirm admin interface is network-accessibleDetermine if the ISE administration portal is exposed beyond the internal network. Check firewall rules, NAT configurations, or ACLs that permit external access to the ISE web ports.Affected if Admin interface is reachable from untrusted networks
A user is affected if Cisco ISE is deployed with its admin interface accessible and the web application lacks CSRF token protection, SameSite cookie attributes, and referer header validation on state-changing requests.
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 dataImplement anti-CSRF tokens in all state-changing web requests, enable same-site cookie attributes, and add referer/origin header validation on the ISE administration interface.
Fix this in Identity Services Engine Software
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing5.0 h
- Review / QA3.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,752.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2013-3420 — 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-2013-3420 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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A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- 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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