CVE-2025-20338

MEDIUM

Cisco IOS XE - Privilege Escalation

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

A vulnerability in the CLI of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker with administrative privileges to execute arbitrary commands as root on the underlying operating system of an affected device. This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user arguments that are passed to specific CLI commands. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by logging in to the device CLI with valid administrative (level 15) credentials and using crafted commands at the CLI prompt. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands as root.

Scores

CVSS v3 6.0
EPSS 0.0001
EPSS Percentile 1.6%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact total

Details

CWE
CWE-141
Status published
Products (50)
cisco/ios_xe 3.5.0e
cisco/ios_xe 3.5.0sq
cisco/ios_xe 3.5.1e
cisco/ios_xe 3.5.1sq
cisco/ios_xe 3.5.2e
cisco/ios_xe 3.5.2sq
cisco/ios_xe 3.5.3e
cisco/ios_xe 3.5.3sq
cisco/ios_xe 3.5.4sq
cisco/ios_xe 3.5.5sq
... and 40 more
Published Sep 24, 2025
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026