VulnerabilityAnalyzed

CVE-2023-20273

Cisco IOS XE Web UI Command Injection Vulnerability

KEVHIGH 7.2EPSS 92.9%

Does this matter?

Known to be exploited in the wild (CISA KEV, CISA remediation deadline 27 October 2023). Treat as an emergency change: patch or isolate now, then hunt for prior compromise.

Description

A vulnerability in the web UI feature of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to inject commands with the privileges of root. This vulnerability is due to insufficient input validation. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted input to the web UI. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to inject commands to the underlying operating system with root privileges.

CVSS 3.1: 7.2 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS: 92.94% probability · 100th percentile
Public exploits: None in Exploit-DB
CISA KEV: Listed 23 October 2023 · due 27 October 2023
Weakness: CWE-78
Affected: cisco/ios xe
Source: psirt@cisco.com

EPSS trend

EPSS moved from 93.0% on 17 October 2026 to 92.9% on 30 October 2026. The dashed line is the ten per cent mark our analysts treat as “patch before the next change window”.

CISA notes

Verify that instances of Cisco IOS XE Web UI are in compliance with BOD 23-02 and apply mitigations per vendor instructions. For affected products (Cisco IOS XE Web UI exposed to the internet or to untrusted networks), follow vendor instructions to determine if a system may have been compromised and immediately report positive findings to CISA. https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-iosxe-webui-privesc-j22SaA4z; https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-20273

References

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.