Borg slings patch at bonehead hardcoded admin password hole

Cisco has squashed a hardcoded admin password flaw in its Unified Communications Domain Manager, as it allowed remote hackers to mess with instant messaging and phone platforms.

The Borg slapped the horrific boneheaded error with a 10 out of 10 severity rating given the ease of compromise and possible devastation of a hack.

It found the vulnerability (CVE-2015-4196) during internal security tests and has issued a patch.

"A vulnerability in the Cisco Unified Communications Domain Manager Platform software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to login with the privileges of the root user and take full control of the affected system," Cisco says in an advisory.

"The vulnerability occurs because a privileged account has a default and static password. This account is created at installation and cannot be changed or deleted without impacting the functionality of the system.

"An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by remotely connecting to the affected system via SSH using this account. An exploit could allow the attacker to take full control over the affected system."

System administrators should upgrade to 4.4.5 of Cisco Unified Communications Domain Manager Platform Software for Cisco Unified Communications Domain Manager version 8.

Cisco Unified Communications Domain Manager version 10.x is not affected by this vulnerability because it does not contain the affected platform software. Version 10 and Cisco Unified Communications Manager are unaffected.

There are no workarounds nor any known exploits in the wild, however news of the vulnerability will doubtless pique the interests of some web pests. ®