Security hole in Cisco Elastic Services Controller gets a 10 out of 10 vulnerability rating Credit: Zapp2Photo / Getty Images Cisco has released a patch for a critical vulnerability in software used to control large virtual environments. The weakness gets a 10 out of 10 severity score and is found in Cisco’s Elastic Services Controller (ESC), which the company describes as offering a single point of control to manage all aspects of Virtual Network Functions and offers capabilities such as VM and service monitoring, auto-recovery and dynamic scaling. With ESC users control the lifecycle all virtualized resources, whether using Cisco or third-party VNFs, Cisco stated. The vulnerability in this case lies in the REST API of ESC and could let an unauthenticated remote attacker to bypass authentication on the REST API and execute arbitrary actions through with administrative privileges on an affected system. The vulnerability is due to improper validation of API requests, Cisco wrote in its advisory. This vulnerability affects Cisco ESC running Software Release 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 or 4.4 when the REST API is enabled. The REST API is not enabled by default, Cisco noted. The vulnerability is fixed in Cisco Elastic Services Controller Release 4.5. Cisco said the susceptibility was found during internal security testing and the company is not aware of any public announcements or malicious use of the vulnerability. Cisco has released free software updates that address this vulnerability and suggests going here for the fix. This announcement was Cisco’s second “critical” patch this month. Last week Cisco said a vulnerability in its Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Mode data center switch that could let an attacker secretly access system resources. That patch was part of some 40 security advisories issued last week. Related content news Hitachi Vantara launches unified storage platform Virtual Storage Platform One provides on-premises and cloud storage of both structured and unstructured data. By Andy Patrizio Apr 26, 2024 2 mins Enterprise Storage Data Center analysis Extreme demos AI-based network assistant Extreme AI Expert can answer network questions, troubleshoot operations, and create alerts for conditions such as network degradation or Wi-Fi dead spots. By Michael Cooney Apr 25, 2024 4 mins Network Management Software news Cradlepoint unveils 5G SASE platform for mobile, distributed environments NetCloud SASE integrates cellular SD-WAN and security capabilities into a cloud-based platform to secure and mitigate risk across managed and unmanaged devices. By Denise Dubie Apr 24, 2024 3 mins 5G SASE SD-WAN analysis IBM drops $6.4B for HashiCorp and its multicloud automation technology HashiCorp's automation technology will fit into IBM’s Red Hat, watsonx, data security, IT automation and consulting businesses. By Michael Cooney Apr 24, 2024 3 mins Data Center Automation Network Management Software Cloud Computing PODCASTS VIDEOS RESOURCES EVENTS NEWSLETTERS Newsletter Promo Module Test Description for newsletter promo module. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe