Privilege Escalation via CLI on Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager
CVE-2025-20122 Published on May 7, 2025

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
A vulnerability in the CLI of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, formerly Cisco SD-WAN vManage, could allow an authenticated, local attacker to gain privileges of the root user on the underlying operating system. This vulnerability is due to insufficient input validation. An authenticated attacker with read-only privileges on the SD-WAN Manager system could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted request to the CLI of the SD-WAN Manager. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to gain root privileges on the underlying operating system.

NVD

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2025-20122 is exploitable with local system access, and requires small amount of user privileges. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to be very high.

Attack Vector:
LOCAL
Attack Complexity:
LOW
Privileges Required:
LOW
User Interaction:
NONE
Scope:
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact:
HIGH
Integrity Impact:
HIGH
Availability Impact:
HIGH

Weakness Type

What is a Man-in-the-Middle / MITM Vulnerability?

The product does not adequately verify the identity of actors at both ends of a communication channel, or does not adequately ensure the integrity of the channel, in a way that allows the channel to be accessed or influenced by an actor that is not an endpoint. In order to establish secure communication between two parties, it is often important to adequately verify the identity of entities at each end of the communication channel. Inadequate or inconsistent verification may result in insufficient or incorrect identification of either communicating entity. This can have negative consequences such as misplaced trust in the entity at the other end of the channel. An attacker can leverage this by interposing between the communicating entities and masquerading as the original entity. In the absence of sufficient verification of identity, such an attacker can eavesdrop and potentially modify the communication between the original entities.

CVE-2025-20122 has been classified to as a Man-in-the-Middle / MITM vulnerability or weakness.


Products Associated with CVE-2025-20122

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Affected Versions

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager:

Exploit Probability

EPSS
0.06%
Percentile
19.23%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.