cbcvebase.
CVE-2026-20186
published 2026-04-15

CVE-2026-20186: A vulnerability in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating…

PriorityP277critical9.9CVSS 3.1
AVNACLPRLUINSCCHIHAH
EPSS
6.31%
92.8th percentile
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.

Affected

53 ranges· showing 25
VendorProductVersion rangeFixed in
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software
ciscocisco_identity_services_engine_software

Detection & IOCsextracted from sources · hover to see the quote

otherCSCwq21242
otherCSCwq22993
  • Alert on unexpected ISE node unavailability or DoS conditions in single-node deployments, which may indicate active exploitation of CVE-2026-20180 or CVE-2026-20186.
  • CWE-22 (Path Traversal) and CWE-77 (Command Injection) are the root cause classes; tune WAF/IDS rules on ISE HTTP endpoints for path traversal sequences and OS command injection patterns.
  • CVE-2026-20186 shares the same advisory (cisco-sa-ise-rce-4fverepv) and exploitation vector as CVE-2026-20180; correlate detections across both CVEs when investigating ISE compromise.
  • ·Exploitation requires at minimum Read Only Admin credentials on the targeted Cisco ISE device; unauthenticated exploitation is not possible for this CVE.
  • ·DoS impact (node unavailability blocking unauthenticated endpoints from network access) is specific to single-node ISE deployments; multi-node deployments have different risk profiles.
  • ·Cisco PSIRT confirmed no known in-the-wild exploitation at time of advisory publication; however, patching is urgent given CVSS 9.9 score and read-only credential requirement lowering the exploitation bar.

CVSS provenance

nvdv3.19.9CRITICALCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
vendor_cisco3.1
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