Cisco Intersight Virtual Appliance Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- High
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- High · High · None
- Fix status
- No fix listed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA.
Summary
A vulnerability in the read-only maintenance shell of Cisco Intersight Virtual Appliance could allow an authenticated, local attacker with administrative privileges to elevate privileges to root on the virtual appliance. This vulnerability is due to improper file permissions on configuration files for system accounts within the maintenance shell of the virtual appliance. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by accessing the maintenance shell as a read-only administrator and manipulating system files to grant root privileges. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to elevate their privileges to root on the virtual appliance and gain full control of the appliance, giving them the ability to access sensitive information, modify workloads and configurations on the host system, and cause a denial of service (DoS).
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Total
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
Remediation
No fixed version listed by the sources yet.
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-20092
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-78gw-pgqh-jc7g
References
More Cisco vulnerabilities
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Sources
- CVE-2026-20092 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-20092 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-78gw-pgqh-jc7g · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences