CVE-2026-20092: Cisco Intersight Virtual Appliance Privilege Escalation Risk: Unauthorized Root Access

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).