Cisco Identity Services Engine Software up to 3.4.0 command injection

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Cisco Identity Services Engine Software. Affected by this issue is some unknown functionality. The manipulation leads to command injection. This vulnerability is listed as CVE-2026-20186. The attack may be initiated remotely. There is no available exploit. 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. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a command injection vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to 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. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

A vulnerability in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) 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 at least Read Only Admin 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 these vulnerabilities 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.

It is possible to read the advisory at sec.cloudapps.cisco.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-20186 since 10/08/2025. 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 $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 04/16/2026). The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1202 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at EUVD (EUVD-2026-22973) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-1146). Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Productinfo

Type

• Policy Management Software

Vendor

• Cisco

Name

• Identity Services Engine Software

Version

• 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/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

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