Cisco has addressed a critical arbitrary program execution flaw in its Cisco Jabber client software. The flaw that has been tracked as CVE-2021-1411, affects several versions of Cisco Jabber client software for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.
Cisco Jabber delivers instant messaging, voice and video calls, voice messaging, desktop sharing, conferencing, and presence.
The vulnerability stems from the improper input validation of incoming messages’ contents and was given a CVSS score of 9.9 out of 10 by Cisco.
According to an advisory published by Cisco, multiple vulnerabilities in Cisco Jabber for Windows, Cisco Jabber for MacOS, and Cisco Jabber for mobile platforms could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary programs on the underlying operating system with elevated privileges, access sensitive information, intercept protected network traffic, or cause a denial of service (DoS) condition.
The vulnerability can be only exploited by attackers that are authenticated to an XMPP server used by the vulnerable software which is used to send specially-crafted XMPP messages to a vulnerable device.
The flaw could be exploited without user interaction by an authenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS devices running unpatched Jabber client software.
A vulnerability in Cisco Jabber for Windows could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to execute programs on a targeted system. This vulnerability is due to improper validation of message content. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted XMPP messages to the affected software. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the application to execute arbitrary programs on the targeted system with the privileges of the user account that is running the Cisco Jabber client software, which could result in arbitrary code execution.
However, the issue does not affect Jabber client software configured for Team Messaging or Phone-only modes.
The flaw affects Cisco Jabber for Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS, versions 12.9 or earlier.
The issue was reported by Olav Sortland Thoresen of Watchcom, who also reported the CVE-2021-1417, and CVE-2021-1418 vulnerabilities. The Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) stated that it is not aware of any attacks in the wild exploiting the vulnerabilities described in its advisory.
Cisco also addressed other four other high and medium severity flaws in Jabber software, tracked as CVE-2021-1417, CVE-2021-1418, CVE-2021-1469, and CVE-2021-1471.
The security flaws include
- CVE-2021-1469: Arbitrary Program Execution Vulnerability
- CVE-2021-1417: Information Disclosure Vulnerability
- CVE-2021-1471: Certificate Validation Vulnerability
- CVE-2021-1418: Denial of Service Vulnerability
