CVE-2026-20176: Cisco Identity Services Engine lets admin attacker run commands

A vulnerability in Cisco ISE could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system of an affected device. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have valid high-privileged administrative credentials.

This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user-supplied input. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted HTTP request to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to obtain system-level access to the underlying operating system and then elevate privileges to root. In single-node deployments, successful exploitation of this vulnerability could cause the affected ISE node to become unavailable, resulting in a DoS condition. In that condition, endpoints that have not already authenticated would be unable to access the network until the node is restored.