Cisco Identity Services Engine Software up to 3.4.0 Web-based Management Interface improper authorization

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Cisco Identity Services Engine Software. Affected is an unknown function of the component Web-based Management Interface. The manipulation leads to improper authorization. This vulnerability is referenced as CVE-2025-20264. Remote exploitation of the attack is possible. No exploit is available. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Cisco Identity Services Engine Software. This issue affects an unknown functionality of the component Web-based Management Interface. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a improper authorization vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-285. The product does not perform or incorrectly performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action. Impacted is integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

A vulnerability in the web-based management interface of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to bypass the authorization mechanisms for specific administrative functions. This vulnerability is due to insufficient authorization enforcement mechanisms for users created by SAML SSO integration with an external identity provider. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by submitting a series of specific commands to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to modify a limited number of system settings, including some that would result in a system restart. In single-node Cisco ISE deployments, devices that are not authenticated to the network will not be able to authenticate until the Cisco ISE system comes back online. 

It is possible to read the advisory at sec.cloudapps.cisco.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2025-20264 since 10/10/2024. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be initiated remotely. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 06/27/2025). The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1548.002 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 240487 (Cisco Identity Services Engine (cisco-sa-ise-auth-bypass-mVfKVQAU)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (240487) and EUVD (EUVD-2025-19235). Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Policy Management Software

Vendor

• Cisco

Name

• Identity Services Engine Software

Version

• 3.0.0
• 3.0.0 p1
• 3.0.0 p2
• 3.0.0 p3
• 3.0.0 p4
• 3.0.0 p5
• 3.0.0 p6
• 3.0.0 p7
• 3.0.0 p8
• 3.1.0
• 3.1.0 p1
• 3.1.0 p2
• 3.1.0 p3
• 3.1.0 p4
• 3.1.0 p5
• 3.1.0 p6
• 3.1.0 p7
• 3.1.0 p8
• 3.1.0 p9
• 3.1.0 p10
• 3.2.0
• 3.2.0 p1
• 3.2.0 p2
• 3.2.0 p3
• 3.2.0 p4
• 3.2.0 p5
• 3.2.0 p6
• 3.2.0 p7
• 3.3.0
• 3.4.0

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.cisco.com/

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