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StarosOperating system · Cisco

CVE-2018-0115

MEDIUM · 6.7 CVSS v3.0 Published 2018-01-18
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
69/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Zero-click

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 · unedited
A vulnerability in the CLI of the Cisco StarOS operating system for Cisco ASR 5000 Series routers could allow an authenticated, local attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on an affected host operating system. The vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user-supplied input. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by injecting malicious command arguments into a vulnerable CLI command. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker would need to authenticate to the affected system by using valid administrator credentials. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCvf93332.

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 confidence

A local privilege escalation vulnerability in the Cisco StarOS CLI for ASR 5000 Series routers allows an authenticated administrator to inject arbitrary commands through insufficiently validated CLI command arguments, achieving root-level execution on the host OS.

MitigationApply Cisco's patch for this vulnerability (refer to Cisco Bug CSCvf93332) and restrict CLI access to only trusted administrators through role-based access controls.

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
StarosOperating system
Affected:all versions

CVSS 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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
High
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify the device model
    Use the CLI command 'show hardware' or check the physical chassis label to confirm the device is an ASR 5000 Series router
    Affected if Device model is ASR 5000 Series and runs Cisco StarOS software
  2. Verify StarOS is the active software
    Run 'show version' in the CLI and confirm the operating system is listed as Cisco StarOS
    Affected if The output shows Cisco StarOS as the running operating system
  3. Confirm CLI access exists
    Attempt to access the StarOS CLI prompt or check if the CLI service is enabled via 'show configuration' or similar administrative commands
    Affected if CLI access is available to any administrator account
  4. Check for administrator accounts
    Use 'show administrator' or 'show user' CLI commands to list configured administrator accounts
    Affected if Multiple administrator accounts exist or untrusted administrators have CLI access
  5. Verify privilege escalation path exists
    Attempt to execute a CLI command with specially crafted arguments (as documented in Cisco Bug CSCvf93332) through an authenticated administrator session
    Affected if The CLI allows arbitrary command injection through insufficiently validated arguments

A user is affected if the device is an ASR 5000 Series router running Cisco StarOS with CLI access available to authenticated administrators, since all versions of StarOS contain the vulnerability.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Apply Cisco's patch for this vulnerability (refer to Cisco Bug CSCvf93332) and restrict CLI access to only trusted administrators through role-based access controls.

Fix this in Staros Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,750
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2018-0115 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

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.

What belongs here
  • 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data