Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2021-1399 affects Cisco Unified Communications Manager Self Care Portal. A logged-in remote user could send a specially crafted web request and change information they should not be allowed to modify. The reported impact is limited to data integrity, with no stated confidentiality or availability impact.
Executive priority
Treat as a normal-priority integrity issue unless the portal is broadly exposed to many users. It does not indicate unauthenticated compromise or service outage, but it can undermine trust in communications-management data.
Technical view
The flaw is insufficient validation of user-supplied data in the Self Care Portal for Cisco Unified CM and Unified CM SME. CVSS 3.1 is 4.3: network reachable, low complexity, low privileges required, no user interaction, unchanged scope, and low integrity impact only. It is mapped to CWE-302.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most relevant where Cisco Unified CM or Unified CM SME Self Care Portal is reachable by authenticated users. The source bundle does not provide affected version ranges or deployment-specific exposure details.
Exploitation context
The source states exploitation requires an authenticated remote attacker and a crafted HTTP request. The CVE is not listed as KEV in the bundle, and no provided source states active exploitation.
Researcher notes
Evidence is limited to the CVE record and Cisco advisory reference in the bundle. Do not assume affected versions, exploit availability, or remediation specifics beyond Cisco’s published guidance. Focus validation on authorization boundaries and unauthorized data modification paths.
Mitigation direction
- Check Cisco’s advisory for affected releases and vendor-approved fixes.
- Inventory Cisco Unified CM and Unified CM SME deployments.
- Restrict Self Care Portal access to intended user populations.
- Review administrative and user authorization boundaries for the portal.
- Monitor for unauthorized Self Care Portal data changes.
Validation and detection
- Confirm whether Self Care Portal is enabled and reachable.
- Identify Cisco Unified CM and Unified CM SME versions in use.
- Compare deployed versions against Cisco’s advisory guidance.
- Review logs for unexpected portal-driven data modifications.
- Validate that authenticated users cannot modify unauthorized records.
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-302: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. 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 lookupPrivilege behavior lookup
The CVE wording references privilege impact, so privilege escalation and authorization behavior review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2021-1399 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
- Medium
- CVSS
- 4.3 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
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:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N2.81.4Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
4.3MediumVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- 20210407 Cisco Unified Communications Manager Self Care Portal Authorization 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.
Authentication Bypass by Assumed-Immutable Data
Authentication Bypass by Assumed-Immutable Data represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.