A vulnerability in the boot process of Cisco Access Point (AP) Software could allow an unauthenticated, physical attacker to bypass the Cisco Secure Boot functionality and load a software image that has been tampered with on an affected device.

This vulnerability exists because unnecessary commands are available during boot time at the physical console. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by interrupting the boot process and executing specific commands to bypass the Cisco Secure Boot validation checks and load an image that has been tampered with. This image would have been previously downloaded onto the targeted device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to load the image once. The Cisco Secure Boot functionality is not permanently compromised.

References

• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-20265
• https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-ap-secureboot-bypass-zT5vJkSD