CVE-2025-20220 is a vulnerability identified in the command-line interface (CLI) of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) Software and Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Software. The flaw arises from improper input validation of certain CLI commands, allowing an authenticated local attacker with valid Administrator credentials to perform OS command injection. Specifically, the attacker can inject arbitrary operating system commands into legitimate CLI commands, thereby escaping the restricted command prompt environment and executing commands on the underlying operating system with root privileges. This escalation of privileges could lead to full system compromise. The affected versions include multiple releases from 7.2.6 through 7.6.0, indicating a broad range of impacted deployments. The vulnerability does not require user interaction but does require high privileges (Administrator access) to exploit. The CVSS v3.1 base score is 6.0 (medium severity), reflecting the local attack vector, low attack complexity, high privileges required, and significant impact on confidentiality and integrity, but no impact on availability. No known exploits are currently reported in the wild. The vulnerability highlights the risk of insufficient sanitization of special elements in CLI commands, which is critical in security management platforms like Cisco FMC that control firewall policies and threat defenses.

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a significant risk due to the widespread use of Cisco Firepower Management Center in enterprise and government networks for centralized firewall and threat management. Successful exploitation could allow an attacker with administrator access to execute arbitrary commands as root, potentially leading to unauthorized access to sensitive data, manipulation or disabling of security controls, and lateral movement within the network. This could undermine the integrity and confidentiality of critical infrastructure and data, especially in sectors such as finance, telecommunications, energy, and public administration, which heavily rely on Cisco security products. The local and authenticated nature of the exploit limits remote exploitation but insider threats or compromised administrator credentials could be leveraged. The absence of known exploits reduces immediate risk but also means organizations must proactively patch and monitor. Given the critical role of FMC in security operations, any compromise could have cascading effects on network security posture across European enterprises.

1. Immediate application of vendor patches or updates once available is the most effective mitigation. Since no patch links are provided, organizations should monitor Cisco advisories closely and prioritize upgrades to non-vulnerable versions. 2. Restrict and tightly control administrator access to the FMC CLI, enforcing strong authentication mechanisms such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) to reduce the risk of credential compromise. 3. Implement strict role-based access control (RBAC) to limit CLI command privileges only to necessary personnel. 4. Monitor and audit CLI command usage and system logs for unusual or unauthorized command executions that could indicate exploitation attempts. 5. Employ network segmentation to isolate management interfaces of FMC from general user networks, minimizing exposure. 6. Conduct regular security training to reduce insider threat risks and ensure administrators follow best practices. 7. Consider deploying host-based intrusion detection systems (HIDS) on FMC servers to detect anomalous OS-level activities. 8. Review and harden FMC configurations to minimize attack surface and disable unused services or features.