VulnerabilityPublished 4 Mar 2026

CVE-2026-20017: Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Software · Execution with Unnecessary Privileges

Affects Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) SoftwareSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.0 Medium.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 11:52 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.0Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 6% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: High
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: High
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: High: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide significant (e.g., administrative) control over the vulnerable component that could affect component-wide settings and files.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: High: There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 4 Mar 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 30 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
CiscoCisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Software	Affected 6.4.0 – 7.7.10.1 76 affected builds	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2026-20017, organizations should: 1) Immediately apply any patches or updates released by Cisco addressing this vulnerability once available. 2) Restrict administrative access to Cisco Secure FTD devices strictly to trusted personnel and enforce strong authentication mechanisms such as multi-factor authentication (MFA). 3) Regularly audit and monitor administrative account usage and CLI command execution logs to detect any suspicious activity indicative of exploitation attempts. 4) Implement network segmentation and access controls to limit local access to the firewall management interface, reducing the attack surface. 5) Employ role-based access control (RBAC) to minimize the number of users with high-level privileges. 6) Conduct periodic security assessments and penetration tests focusing on administrative interfaces to identify potential weaknesses. 7) Educate administrators on secure CLI usage and the risks of privilege escalation vulnerabilities. 8) Consider deploying endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions on management workstations to detect anomalous command execution patterns. These measures collectively reduce the likelihood of exploitation and limit the impact if an attacker gains administrative access.

Description

A vulnerability in the CLI of Cisco Secure FTD Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system as root. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have valid administrative credentials on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to insufficient input validation of user-supplied command arguments. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by submitting crafted input for a specific CLI command. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute commands on the underlying operating system as root.

Impact

The potential impact of CVE-2026-20017 is significant for organizations using Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense software. Since the vulnerability allows root-level command execution, an attacker with administrative access can fully compromise the firewall device, leading to unauthorized access to sensitive network traffic, modification or disabling of security policies, and potential pivoting to other internal systems. This could result in data breaches, disruption of network security controls, and loss of integrity and confidentiality of protected assets. Enterprises, service providers, and government agencies relying on Cisco FTD for perimeter defense or internal segmentation are at risk. The vulnerability could also undermine trust in network security infrastructure and complicate incident response efforts. Although exploitation requires administrative credentials, insider threats or compromised admin accounts could leverage this flaw to escalate privileges and cause severe damage. The absence of known exploits in the wild reduces immediate risk but does not diminish the criticality of timely remediation given the broad version impact and severity.

References

sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-ftd-cmd-inj-mTzGZexf (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 11 Mar 2026, 19:58 UTC

Technical details

References

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