Cisco Identity Services Engine Software File Management path traversal

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as very critical has been reported in Cisco Identity Services Engine Software and ISE Passive Identity Connector. This vulnerability affects unknown code of the component File Management. This manipulation causes path traversal. This vulnerability appears as CVE-2026-76431. The attack may be initiated remotely. There is no available exploit. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Cisco Identity Services Engine Software and ISE Passive Identity Connector (the affected version is unknown). It has been declared as very critical. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown code of the component File Management. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a path traversal vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is 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. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

A vulnerability in the file management function of the web-based management interface of Cisco ISE and Cisco ISE-PIC could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to delete arbitrary files and directories on an affected device. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have valid administrative credentials. This vulnerability is due to improper validation of directory traversal character sequences in a user-supplied file path before the request is validated. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted request to the web-based management interface of an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to delete arbitrary files and directories on the underlying operating system of the affected device.

It is possible to read the advisory at sec.cloudapps.cisco.com. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-76431 since 08/19/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be launched remotely. Additional levels of successful authentication are necessary for exploitation. 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 09/16/2026). The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1006 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Type

• Policy Management Software

Vendor

• Cisco

Name

• Identity Services Engine Software
• ISE Passive Identity Connector

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.cisco.com/

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