Cisco IOS XE Software for Cisco Catalyst 9000 Family Switches and Catalyst 9000 Family Wireless Controllers Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

published 2022-04-15 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2022-25931

cvss: 7.8; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.2%; EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 14%
public exploits: 0; none known

A vulnerability in the CLI of Cisco IOS XE Software for Cisco Catalyst 9000 Family Switches and Cisco Catalyst 9000 Family Wireless Controllers could allow an authenticated, local attacker to elevate privileges to level 15 on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user privileges after the user executes certain CLI commands. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by logging in to an affected device as a low-privileged user and then executing certain CLI commands. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands with level 15 privileges on the affected device.

Exploit prediction

0.23% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 14% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	7.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	3.1	7.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	2.0	7.2	AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Affected products

Cisco Cisco IOS XE Software

Classification

Weakness

CWE-266 Incorrect Privilege Assignment

Technology feeds

Cisco IOS rss critical rss

References

tools.cisco.com /security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-ewlc-priv-esc-ybvHKO5
vendor-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2022-20681
NVD CVE-2022-20681

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Summary