Cisco IOS XE Software IOx Application Hosting Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

published 2020-09-24 6y ago modified 2026-06-17 4mo ago also EUVD-2020-24664

cvss: 6.0; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.3%; EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 27%
public exploits: 0; none known

A vulnerability in the application-hosting subsystem of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to elevate privileges to root on an affected device. The attacker could execute IOS XE commands outside the application-hosting subsystem Docker container as well as on the underlying Linux operating system. These commands could be run as the root user. The vulnerability is due to a combination of two factors: (a) incomplete input validation of the user payload of CLI commands, and (b) improper role-based access control (RBAC) when commands are issued at the command line within the application-hosting subsystem. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by using a CLI command with crafted user input. A successful exploit could allow the lower-privileged attacker to execute arbitrary CLI commands with root privileges. The attacker would need valid user credentials to exploit this vulnerability.

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: total
Assessed: last yr. (2024-11-13)

Exploit prediction

0.34% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 27% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	6.0	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
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-269 Improper Privilege Management
CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

Technology feeds

Cisco IOS rss critical rss

References

tools.cisco.com /security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-iosxe-iox-app-host-mcZcnsBt
vendor-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2020-3393
NVD CVE-2020-3393

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