Critical Cisco ‘CDPwn’ Flaws Break Network Segmentation

Researchers on Wednesday disclosed five critical vulnerabilities in Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), the Cisco Proprietary Layer 2 network protocol that is used to discover information about locally attached Cisco equipment. Threatpost talked to Ben Seri, VP of Research at Armis, who discovered the flaws, about the CDPwn flaws, their impact, and why Layer 2 protocols are an under-researched area. Researchers say that the vulnerabilities, which they collectively dub CDPwn, can allow attackers to remotely take over millions of devices. The flaws specifically exist in the parsing of CDP packets, in the protocol implementation for various Cisco products, from its software to IP cameras. Cisco issued patches on Wednesday addressing the five flaws, and is urging users to update as soon as possible.