CVE-2026-76498: Improper Access Control in Cisco Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC)

Cisco's internal security review of the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) uncovered multiple vulnerabilities related to improper access control, tracked under CVE-2026-76498. These issues fall under CWE-284 and represent failures in enforcing proper access restrictions. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), reflecting that the vulnerability can be exploited remotely without privileges or user interaction, resulting in high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Cisco has released software hardening updates to address these vulnerabilities.

Successful exploitation of CVE-2026-76498 could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to bypass access controls in Cisco APIC, potentially leading to full compromise of the system's confidentiality, integrity, and availability. This could result in unauthorized access to sensitive data, manipulation of system configurations, and disruption of services.

Cisco has released software hardening updates that address the vulnerabilities identified in CVE-2026-76498. Users of Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) should apply these updates promptly to remediate the improper access control issues. Since the vendor advisory indicates that fixes are available, applying the official patches is the recommended mitigation.