Vulnerabilities > CVE-2025-20168
Attack vector
NETWORK Attack complexity
LOW Privileges required
LOW Confidentiality impact
LOW Integrity impact
LOW Availability impact
NONE Summary
A vulnerability in the web-based management interface of Cisco Common Services Platform Collector (CSPC) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to conduct cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks against a user of the interface. This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user-supplied input by the web-based management interface of an affected system. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by injecting malicious code into specific pages of the interface. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary script code in the context of the affected interface or access sensitive, browser-based information. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have at least a low-privileged account on an affected device. Cisco has not released software updates that address this vulnerability. There are no workarounds that address this vulnerability.
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- Embedding Scripts in Non-Script Elements This attack is a form of Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) where malicious scripts are embedded in elements that are not expected to host scripts such as image tags (<img>), comments in XML documents (< !-CDATA->), etc. These tags may not be subject to the same input validation, output validation, and other content filtering and checking routines, so this can create an opportunity for an attacker to tunnel through the application's elements and launch a XSS attack through other elements. As with all remote attacks, it is important to differentiate the ability to launch an attack (such as probing an internal network for unpatched servers) and the ability of the remote attacker to collect and interpret the output of said attack.
- Cross-Site Scripting Using Alternate Syntax The attacker uses alternate forms of keywords or commands that result in the same action as the primary form but which may not be caught by filters. For example, many keywords are processed in a case insensitive manner. If the site's web filtering algorithm does not convert all tags into a consistent case before the comparison with forbidden keywords it is possible to bypass filters (e.g., incomplete black lists) by using an alternate case structure. For example, the "script" tag using the alternate forms of "Script" or "ScRiPt" may bypass filters where "script" is the only form tested. Other variants using different syntax representations are also possible as well as using pollution meta-characters or entities that are eventually ignored by the rendering engine. The attack can result in the execution of otherwise prohibited functionality.
- Cross-Site Scripting via Encoded URI Schemes An attack of this type exploits the ability of most browsers to interpret "data", "javascript" or other URI schemes as client-side executable content placeholders. This attack consists of passing a malicious URI in an anchor tag HREF attribute or any other similar attributes in other HTML tags. Such malicious URI contains, for example, a base64 encoded HTML content with an embedded cross-site scripting payload. The attack is executed when the browser interprets the malicious content i.e., for example, when the victim clicks on the malicious link.
- Cross-Site Scripting with Masking through Invalid Characters in Identifiers The attacker inserts invalid characters in identifiers to bypass application filtering of input. Filters may not scan beyond invalid characters but during later stages of processing content that follows these invalid characters may still be processed. This allows the attacker to sneak prohibited commands past filters and perform normally prohibited operations. Invalid characters may include null, carriage return, line feed or tab in an identifier. Successful bypassing of the filter can result in a XSS attack, resulting in the disclosure of web cookies or possibly other results.
- Embedding Scripts in HTTP Query Strings A variant of cross-site scripting called "reflected" cross-site scripting, the HTTP Query Strings attack consists of passing a malicious script inside an otherwise valid HTTP request query string. This is of significant concern for sites that rely on dynamic, user-generated content such as bulletin boards, news sites, blogs, and web enabled administration GUIs. The malicious script may steal session data, browse history, probe files, or otherwise execute attacks on the client side. Once the attacker has prepared the malicious HTTP query it is sent to a victim user (perhaps by email, IM, or posted on an online forum), who clicks on a normal looking link that contains a poison query string. This technique can be made more effective through the use of services like http://tinyurl.com/, which makes very small URLs that will redirect to very large, complex ones. The victim will not know what he is really clicking on.