Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
This flaw could let someone reach the Cisco management web interface without valid credentials and obtain administrative control. For organizations running the affected Cisco infrastructure management products, this is a high-urgency exposure because compromise can affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability of managed systems.
Executive priority
Treat this as urgent for any affected Cisco management platform, especially if reachable beyond a tightly controlled admin network. The risk is full administrative access without credentials, but source evidence here does not prove current exploitation.
Technical view
CVE-2019-1974 is an authentication bypass in the web-based management interface of Cisco IMC Supervisor, Cisco UCS Director, and Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data. The stated cause is insufficient request header validation during authentication, classified as CWE-287, with CVSS 3.0 score 9.8.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most relevant where affected Cisco management interfaces are reachable over a network, especially from untrusted networks. The provided source bundle does not identify affected version ranges or deployment counts.
Exploitation context
The vulnerability is remotely reachable, unauthenticated, low complexity, and requires no user interaction. The bundle does not provide exploit evidence, and KEV is false, so active exploitation is not established by the provided sources.
Researcher notes
The public facts support an auth bypass caused by request header validation weakness in the authentication flow. Version detail, patches, workarounds, and exploit status are incomplete in the provided bundle, so validation should rely on Cisco’s advisory and internal asset data.
Mitigation direction
- Identify any Cisco IMC Supervisor, UCS Director, or UCS Director Express for Big Data deployments.
- Review Cisco’s advisory for affected releases, fixed releases, and official workarounds.
- Restrict management interfaces to trusted administrative networks only.
- Require monitoring and alerting for unexpected administrator sessions or configuration changes.
- Prioritize remediation for internet-reachable or broadly reachable management portals.
Validation and detection
- Confirm whether the named Cisco products exist in inventory.
- Map each instance to its product version and management interface exposure.
- Check Cisco’s advisory for whether each version is affected.
- Review authentication and admin activity logs for unusual access patterns.
- Verify remediation status against Cisco’s official fixed-release guidance.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-287: Credential and account abuse lookup
Authentication and credential weaknesses can make valid-account abuse and credential telemetry useful review starting points. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCredential and access behavior lookup
The CVE wording references authentication or credential exposure, so valid-account and credential-access review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2019-1974 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Critical
- CVSS
- 9.8 (3.0)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H3.95.9Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.0 score
9.8CriticalVector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- 20190821 Cisco IMC Supervisor, Cisco UCS Director, and Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data Authentication Bypass VulnerabilityCVE reference · vendor-advisory, x_refsource_CISCO
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Improper Authentication
Improper Authentication represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.