Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center up to 10.0.1 External Database Access deserialization

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center. It has been declared as very critical. The affected element is an unknown function of the component External Database Access. The manipulation results in deserialization. This vulnerability is cataloged as CVE-2026-20242. The attack may be launched remotely. There is no exploit available. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center. It has been classified as very critical. Affected is some unknown processing of the component External Database Access. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a deserialization vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-502. The product deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently verifying that the resulting data will be valid. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

A vulnerability in the External Database Access feature of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands as root on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to insecure deserialization of a user-supplied Java byte stream from a host that is configured in the external database access list. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted, serialized Java byte stream to a specific TCP port of an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the device and elevate privileges to root. Notes: This vulnerability can be exploited only by an attacker who has control of a host in the external database access list. If the FMC management interface does not have public internet access, the attack surface that is associated with this vulnerability is reduced.

The advisory is shared for download at sec.cloudapps.cisco.com. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-20242 since 10/08/2025. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to launch the attack remotely. The exploitation doesn't require any form of 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 09/16/2026).

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Type

• Firewall Software

Vendor

• Cisco

Name

• Secure Firewall Management Center

Version

• 7.0.0
• 7.0.0.1
• 7.0.1
• 7.0.1.1
• 7.0.2
• 7.0.2.1
• 7.0.3
• 7.0.4
• 7.0.5
• 7.0.6
• 7.0.6.1
• 7.0.6.2
• 7.0.6.3
• 7.0.7
• 7.0.8
• 7.0.8.1
• 7.0.9
• 7.2.0
• 7.2.0.1
• 7.2.1
• 7.2.2
• 7.2.3
• 7.2.3.1
• 7.2.4
• 7.2.4.1
• 7.2.5
• 7.2.5.1
• 7.2.5.2
• 7.2.6
• 7.2.7
• 7.2.8
• 7.2.8.1
• 7.2.9
• 7.2.10
• 7.2.10.1
• 7.2.10.2
• 7.2.11
• 7.3.0
• 7.3.1
• 7.3.1.1
• 7.3.1.2
• 7.4.0
• 7.4.1
• 7.4.1.1
• 7.4.2
• 7.4.2.1
• 7.4.2.2
• 7.4.2.3
• 7.4.2.4
• 7.4.3
• 7.4.4
• 7.4.5
• 7.4.6
• 7.4.7
• 7.6.0
• 7.6.1
• 7.6.2
• 7.6.2.1
• 7.6.3
• 7.6.4
• 7.6.5
• 7.7.0
• 7.7.10
• 7.7.10.1
• 7.7.11
• 7.7.12
• 10.0.0
• 10.0.1

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.cisco.com/

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