4/13/2004 -- It's been a busy week on the security front for Cisco Systems Inc., which disclosed or updated information about three very different vulnerabilities that affect a range of its products.

Last Wednesday, Cisco disclosed a new vulnerability in its Wireless LAN Solution Engine (WLSE) and Hosting Solution Engine (HSE) software. WLSE is management appliance that manages Ciscos Aironet Wireless-Fidelity (Wi-Fi) products, while HSE is a network management appliance for Cisco-based datacenters.

Cisco said that an attacker could exploit the new vulnerability to gain complete control of the devices. Once handed the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, attackers can make changes to a devices configuration, add new users, or change the privileges of existing users. Cisco said that the vulnerability affects WLSE 2.0, 2.0.2, and 2.5, as well as HSE 1.7 through 1.7.3.

The problem can only be fixed by means of a software update patch, which is available here for WLSE and here for HSE.

Elsewhere last week, Cisco announced a new vulnerability in its Cisco IP Security (IPSec) VPN Services Module (VPNSM) that could expose members of its Catalyst switch and router families to denial of service (DoS) attack.

VPNSM is a high-speed module designed to provide IPSec VPN services for Ciscos Catalyst 6500 Series switches and 7600 Series routers. An attacker can exploit a malformed Internet Key Exchange (IKE) packet to cause Catalyst 6500 Series switches or 7600 Series routers with VPNSM installed, of course to crash and reload, Cisco said. Customers must download a software fix and patch vulnerable units manually.

Finally, Cisco updated a security notice that it first released in August of 2003, which dealt with the possibility of a dictionary attack exploit of Cisco LEAP, a mutual authentication algorithm that supports dynamic derivation of system keys. Yesterday, Cisco announced the availability of EAP-Flexible Authentication via Secure Tunneling (EAP-FAST), which lets users deploy an 802.1X Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) solution that is not vulnerable to dictionary attacks and which does not require the use of digital certificates. -Stephen Swoyer