KEVIntel
7.8
CVSS
High

CVE-2026-20245

PUBLISHED

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller Authenticated Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Exploited in the wild Low complexity No user interaction
Vendor
Cisco
Product
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager
Published
Jun 04, 2026
EPSS

Automate this intelligence with the Pro API

Everything on this page — CVSS, EPSS, exploit status, PoCs, scanner integrations, mentions, tags, and immediate honeypot sensor data — is available programmatically for VM, SOC, and CTI workflows.

Description

A vulnerability in the CLI of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, formerly SD-WAN vManage, could allow an authenticated, local attacker to execute arbitrary commands as root by supplying a crafted file to the affected system. This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user-supplied input. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by uploading a crafted file to the affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to perform command injection attacks on an affected system and elevate their privileges as the root user. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have netadmin privileges on the affected system. This would require valid credentials or exploitation of or . Cisco is not aware of successful exploitation by other methods. Cisco has observed limited cases where the exploitation of this bug resulted in a configuration change pushed to edge devices. Cisco recommends that customers upgrade to the fixed software that is documented in the that was published on May 14, 2026, and verify the configuration of the edge devices.

edge

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • Improper Encoding or Escaping of Output (CWE-116), Improper Handling of Unicode Encoding (CWE-176)

CVSS scores

CVSS v3.1 7.8 High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Exploitation status

Exploited in the wild

Recorded 2026-06-05 06:24:20 UTC · Source

Known exploited vulnerability sources

Catalogues that list this CVE as a known exploited vulnerability.

Source Added
BleepingComputer First 2026-06-05 06:24 UTC

Recent mentions

Cisco warns of unpatched SD-WAN zero-day exploited in attacks

BleepingComputer · Jun 05, 2026

On Thursday, Cisco warned of a high-severity, unpatched zero-day in the Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager (tracked as CVE-2026-20245) actively exploited in attacks enabling root privilege escalation. [...]

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager Authenticated Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Cisco Security Advisory · Jun 04, 2026

A vulnerability in the CLI of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, formerly SD-WAN vManage, could allow an authenticated, local attacker to execute arbitrary commands as root by supplying a crafted file to the affected system. This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user-supplied input. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by uploading a crafted file to the affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to perform command injection attacks on an affected system and elevate their privileges as the root user.  To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have netadmin privileges on the affected system. This would require valid credentials or exploitation of CVE-2026-20182 or CVE-2026-20127. Cisco is not aware of successful exploitation by other methods. Cisco has observed limited cases where the exploitation of this bug resulted in a configuration change pushed to edge devices. Cisco recommends that customers upgrade to the fixed software that is documented in the Catalyst SD-WAN Security Advisory that was published on May 14, 2026, and verify the configuration of the edge devices. Cisco has not released software updates that address this vulnerability. There are no workarounds that address this vulnerability. Important: To preserve possible indicators of compromise, customers should issue the request admin-tech command from each of the control components in the SD-WAN deployment before upgrading. After the admin-tech file has been collected, software should be upgraded at the earliest opportunity. Before upgrading an SD-WAN deployment to a fixed release, retain relevant logs. After upgrading, verify that the system has not been compromised by checking the logs for the indicators of compromise as documented in this advisory. If the logs show indicators of compromise and the system is confirmed to be compromised, applying the software update alone will not resolve the vulnerability. In such cases, follow the specific...

Timeline

  • CVE ID Reserved

  • CVE Published to Public

  • Added to KEVIntel