Cisco Identity Services Engine HTTP path traversal

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as very critical was found in Cisco Identity Services Engine and ISE Passive Identity Connector. This vulnerability affects unknown code of the component HTTP Handler. Such manipulation leads to path traversal. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2026-20146. The attack can be executed remotely. There is not any exploit available.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as very critical, has been found in Cisco Identity Services Engine and ISE Passive Identity Connector (version unknown). Affected by this issue is an unknown function of the component HTTP Handler. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a path traversal vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-22. The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

A vulnerability in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Cisco ISE Passive Identity Connector (ISE-PIC) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to perform path traversal attacks on the underlying operating system to either read or delete arbitrary files. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have valid administrative credentials.  This vulnerability is due to improper validation of user-supplied input. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted HTTP request to an affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to access sensitive files or delete arbitrary files on the affected system.

The advisory is shared for download at sec.cloudapps.cisco.com. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2026-20146 since 10/08/2025. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be launched remotely. The exploitation needs additional levels of successful authentication. There are neither technical details nor an exploit publicly available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $5k-$25k (estimation calculated on 07/15/2026). The MITRE ATT&CK project declares the attack technique as T1006.

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

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Productinfo

Type

• Policy Management Software

Vendor

• Cisco

Name

• Identity Services Engine
• ISE Passive Identity Connector

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.cisco.com/

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