CVE-2018-0375

What is this vulnerability?

CVE-2018-0375 is categorized as a critical Hard-coded Credentials flaw with a CVSS base score of 9.8. Based on our vulnerability intelligence, this issue occurs when the application fails to securely handle untrusted data boundaries.

A vulnerability in the Cluster Manager of Cisco Policy Suite before 18.2.0 could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to log in to an affected system using the root account, which has default, static user credentials. The vulnerability is due to the presence of undocumented, static user credentials for the root account. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by using the account to log in to an affected system. An exploit could allow the attacker to log in to the affected system and execute arbitrary commands as the root user. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCvh02680.

This architectural defect enables adversaries to bypass intended security controls, directly manipulating the application's execution state or data layer. Immediate strategic intervention is required.

Risk Assessment

Impact on Systems

✅ Credential Theft: Exposed secrets enable unauthorized access to infrastructure, cloud services, and third-party integrations.

✅ Compliance Violation: Leaking PII or credentials may violate GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and SOC 2 requirements.

✅ Supply Chain Risk: Compromised credentials in public repositories can propagate to downstream consumers.

How to Fix and Mitigate CVE-2018-0375

1. Apply Vendor Patches: Upgrade affected components to their latest, non-vulnerable versions immediately.
2. Implement Input Validation: Ensure all user-supplied data is validated, sanitized, and type-checked before processing.
3. Deploy Runtime Protection: Use Precogs continuous monitoring to detect exploitation attempts in real time.
4. Audit Dependencies: Review and update all third-party libraries and transitive dependencies.

Defending with Precogs AI

Precogs PII & Secrets Scanner automatically identifies hardcoded credentials, exposed API keys, and personally identifiable information leaks across repositories, CI/CD pipelines, and deployed artifacts.

Use Precogs to continuously scan your codebase, binaries, APIs, and infrastructure for this vulnerability class and related attack patterns. Our AI-powered detection engine combines static analysis with threat intelligence to identify exploitable weaknesses before attackers do.

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Vulnerability Code Signature

Attack Data Flow

Vulnerable Code Pattern

// ❌ VULNERABLE: Hardcoded credential
public class DatabaseConfig {
    // Taint sink: secret embedded in code
    public static final String DB_PASSWORD = "SuperSecretPassword123!";
}

Secure Code Pattern

// ✅ SECURE: Environment variables
public class DatabaseConfig {
    // Sanitized configuration
    public static final String DB_PASSWORD = System.getenv("DB_PASSWORD");
}

How Precogs Detects This

Precogs PII & Secrets Scanner continuously monitors codebases for hardcoded secrets, API keys, and reversible encryption.