As part of Cisco's ongoing commitment to proactive security and product quality, the Cisco IOS XE Software engineering team has conducted a comprehensive internal security review. This review resulted in software hardening releases that address multiple internally discovered vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities tracked by CVE-2026-20272 are related to issues with improper neutralization of special elements that are grouped under the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) Pillar CWE-74.
As part of Cisco's ongoing commitment to proactive security and product quality, the Cisco IOS XE Software engineering team has conducted a comprehensive internal security review. This review resulted in software hardening releases that address multiple internally discovered vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities tracked by CVE-2026-20267 are related to improper access control issues that are grouped under the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) Pillar CWE-284.
Cisco IOS XE contains a command injection vulnerability in the web user interface that could allow a remote, authenticated attacker to inject commands that can be executed as the root user.
A vulnerability in the Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP) protocol processing of Cisco IOS XE Software for Cisco Catalyst 9000 Family Wireless Controllers could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code with administrative privileges or cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to a logic error that occurs during the validation of CAPWAP packets. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted CAPWAP packet to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code with administrative privileges or cause the affected device to crash and reload, resulting in a DoS condition.
A vulnerability in the web UI of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on the underlying operating system of an affected device. The vulnerability is due to improper input sanitization. An attacker who has valid administrative access to an affected device could exploit this vulnerability by supplying a crafted input parameter on a form in the web UI and then submitting that form. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on the device, which could lead to complete system compromise.
A vulnerability in the web UI of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on the underlying operating system of an affected device. The vulnerability is due to improper input sanitization. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by uploading a crafted file to the web UI of an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to inject and execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on the device.
A vulnerability in the web UI of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, remote attacker with administrative privileges to execute arbitrary code with root privileges on the underlying Linux shell. The vulnerability is due to improper validation of user-supplied input. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by first creating a malicious file on the affected device itself and then uploading a second malicious file to the device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code with root privileges or bypass licensing requirements on the device.
A vulnerability in the web UI of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to inject and execute arbitrary commands with administrative privileges on the underlying operating system of an affected device. The vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user-supplied input to the web UI. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by submitting crafted input to the web UI. A successful exploit could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary commands with administrative privileges on an affected device.
A vulnerability in the web-based user interface (web UI) of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, remote attacker with read-only privileges to inject IOS commands to an affected device. The injected commands should require a higher privilege level in order to be executed. The vulnerability is due to insufficient input validation of specific HTTP requests. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted HTTP requests to a specific web UI endpoint on an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to inject IOS commands to the affected device, which could allow the attacker to alter the configuration of the device or cause a denial of service (DoS) condition.
A vulnerability in the authorization controls for the Cisco IOx application hosting infrastructure in Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute Cisco IOx API commands without proper authorization. The vulnerability is due to incorrect handling of requests for authorization tokens. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by using a crafted API call to request such a token. An exploit could allow the attacker to obtain an authorization token and execute any of the IOx API commands on an affected device.
A vulnerability in Role Based Access Control (RBAC) functionality of Cisco IOS XE Web Management Software could allow a Read-Only authenticated, remote attacker to execute commands or configuration changes as an Admin user. The vulnerability is due to incorrect handling of RBAC for the administration GUI. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a modified HTTP request to the affected device. An exploit could allow the attacker as a Read-Only user to execute CLI commands or configuration changes as if they were an Admin user.
A vulnerability in the authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) function of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass NETCONF or RESTCONF authentication and do either of the following: Install, manipulate, or delete the configuration of an affected device Cause memory corruption that results in a denial of service (DoS) on an affected device This vulnerability is due to an uninitialized variable. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a series of NETCONF or RESTCONF requests to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to use NETCONF or RESTCONF to install, manipulate, or delete the configuration of a network device or to corrupt memory on the device, resulting a DoS.
Multiple vulnerabilities in the Cisco IOx application hosting environment on multiple Cisco platforms could allow an attacker to inject arbitrary commands into the underlying host operating system, execute arbitrary code on the underlying host operating system, install applications without being authenticated, or conduct a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack against a user of the affected software. For more information about these vulnerabilities, see the Details section of this advisory.