Command Injection in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
CVE-2026-20186 is a critical authenticated remote command injection vulnerability in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE). The flaw is caused by insufficient validation of user-supplied input in the Cisco ISE web management interface. An attacker with at least Read Only Admin credentials can send a crafted HTTP request to an affected ISE device and execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system. Successful exploitation can provide initial user-level OS access and then enable privilege escalation to root. Cisco’s published information indicates the issue is network exploitable, requires no user interaction, and affects Cisco ISE broadly regardless of configuration, with Cisco ISE Passive Identity Connector not affected. In supported branches, fixed releases include ISE 3.2 Patch 8, 3.3 Patch 8, and 3.4 Patch 4; Cisco ISE 3.5 is reported as not vulnerable.
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Impact, mitigation & remediation
What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.
Impact
What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.
Mitigation
If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.
Remediation
Patch, then assume compromise.
Exploits
No valid public exploits. Mallory filtered out 1 candidate as fakes, detection scripts, or README-only repos.
All candidate exploits were filtered out by Mallory's validation.
Affected products & vendors
Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.
Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.
Recent activity
11 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
A critical Cisco ISE command execution vulnerability that allows attackers with read-only administrative access to execute arbitrary commands on affected systems.
An input validation vulnerability in Cisco ISE that could allow attackers with read-only admin access to execute arbitrary OS commands via crafted HTTP requests.
A critical Cisco Identity Services Engine vulnerability that could allow a remote authenticated attacker with read-only admin rights to achieve remote code execution on the underlying operating system of an affected device.
An input validation vulnerability in Cisco ISE that could allow an authenticated remote attacker with read-only admin credentials to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system.
The version that knows your environment.
Query your assets running an affected version, and investigate the blast radius.
Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.
Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.
Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.