Cisco Identity Services Engine Software command injection

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Cisco Identity Services Engine Software and ISE Passive Identity Connector. Affected is an unknown function. Performing a manipulation results in command injection. This vulnerability is identified as CVE-2026-20147. The attack can be initiated remotely. There is not any exploit available. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Cisco Identity Services Engine Software and ISE Passive Identity Connector (version now known). This affects some unknown processing. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a command injection vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-77. The product constructs all or part of a command using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended command when it is sent to a downstream component. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

A vulnerability in Cisco ISE and Cisco ISE-PIC could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system of an affected device. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have valid administrative credentials. This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user-supplied input. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted HTTP request to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to obtain user-level access to the underlying operating system and then elevate privileges to root. In single-node ISE deployments, successful exploitation of this vulnerability could cause the affected ISE node to become unavailable, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. In that condition, endpoints that have not already authenticated would be unable to access the network until the node is restored.

The advisory is shared at sec.cloudapps.cisco.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-20147 since 10/08/2025. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 04/16/2026). MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1202 for this issue.

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at EUVD (EUVD-2026-22962) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-1146). If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

Affected

• Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Productinfo

Type

• Policy Management Software

Vendor

• Cisco

Name

• Identity Services Engine Software
• ISE Passive Identity Connector

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.cisco.com/

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒
• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

• 🔒
• 🔒

CVSSv4info

CVSSv3info

CVSSv2info

Exploitinginfo

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Countermeasuresinfo

Timelineinfo

Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

Discussion