Overview
A severe vulnerability, designated as CVE-2025-20281, has been identified in the application programming interface (API) of Cisco’s Identity Services Engine (ISE) and ISE-PIC products. This vulnerability could potentially allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the underlying operating system with root privileges, leading to a significant system compromise or data leakage. Given the prominence of Cisco’s ISE and ISE-PIC products in the enterprise networking space, this vulnerability poses a substantial threat to organizations globally.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-20281
Severity: Critical (CVSS: 9.8/10)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Impact: System compromise, Potential data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
Cisco ISE | All versions prior to the patched version
Cisco ISE-PIC | All versions prior to the patched version
How the Exploit Works
This vulnerability results from insufficient validation of user-supplied input in a specific API of the Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by crafting a special API request containing malicious input. When this request is processed by the affected system, due to the insufficient input validation, the attacker’s code is executed with root privileges on the underlying operating system, leading to a potential system compromise or data leakage.
Conceptual Example Code
An attacker could potentially exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted HTTP request similar to the following:
POST /api/vulnerable_endpoint HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/json
{ "malicious_payload": "<CODE THAT EXECUTES ARBITRARY COMMANDS ON THE SYSTEM>" }In the above example, `` represents the attacker’s arbitrary code.
Mitigation Guidance
Organizations are advised to apply the vendor-provided patch as soon as possible to remediate this vulnerability. In the meantime, or in cases where immediate patching is not feasible, the use of a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can serve as a temporary mitigation, helping to detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability.