Network Services Orchestrator
CVE-2023-20040
MEDIUM
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
ASVS 5.0
V5 - File Handling Relative path traversal prevention
|
| Impact | CVSS score of 5.5 (MEDIUM). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, high privileges required, no user interaction not required. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | This vulnerability can be exploited remotely over the network. Successful exploitation could compromise the medium-severity affected system. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
A vulnerability in the NETCONF service of Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) on an affected system that is. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
RemediationAI
No vendor patch is available at time of analysis. Monitor vendor advisories for updates. Apply vendor patches when available. Implement network segmentation and monitoring as interim mitigations.
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Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified under CWE-23. A vulnerability in the NETCONF service of Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) on an affected system that is running as the root user. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must be a member of the admin group. This vulnerability exists because user-supplied input is not properly validated when NETCONF is used to upload packages to an affected device. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by uploading a specially crafted package file. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to write crafted files to arbitrary locations on the filesystem or delete arbitrary files from the filesystem of an affected device, resulting in a DoS condition. Note: By default, during install, Cisco NSO will be set up to run as the root user unless the --run-as-user option is used. Affected products include: Cisco Network Services Orchestrator.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
A vulnerability in the NETCONF service of Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) on an affected system that is running as the root user. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must be a member of the admin group. This vulnerability exists because user-supplied input is not properly validated when NETCONF is used to upload packages to an affected device. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by uploading a specially crafted package file. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to write crafted files to arbitrary locations on the filesystem or delete arbitrary files from the filesystem of an affected device, resulting in a DoS condition. Note: By default, during install, Cisco NSO will be set up to run as the root user unless the --run-as-user option is used.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
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Erlang/OTP SSH server allows unauthenticated remote code execution by exploiting a flaw in SSH protocol message handling
A vulnerability in the JSON-RPC API feature in Cisco Crosswork Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) and ConfD that is use
A vulnerability in the CLI parser of Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) could allow an authenticated, remote atta
A vulnerability in the Tail-f High Availability Cluster Communications (HCC) function pack of Cisco Crosswork Network Se
A vulnerability in ConfD could allow an authenticated, local attacker to execute arbitrary commands at the level of the
A vulnerability in the Cisco Network Plug and Play server component of Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) could a
A vulnerability in the web-based management interface of Cisco Crosswork Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) could allow
A vulnerability in the CLI of Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) could allow an authenticated, local attacker to
GitHub PoC
Exploit-DB