# CVE-2022-20791: Cisco Unified Communications Products Arbitrary File Read Vulnerability

> Authenticated attackers can read arbitrary files on the underlying OS of Cisco Unified Communications Manager products via crafted API commands.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 6 Jul 2022
- **Updated:** 6 Nov 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-q64f-4f9p-qmph

## What is CVE-2022-20791?

CVE-2022-20791 is a medium-severity path traversal vulnerability in Cisco Unified Communications Manager, published on 6 Jul 2022. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability in the database user privileges of Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM), Cisco Unified Communications Manager Session Management Edition (Unified CM SME), and Cisco Unified Communications Manager IM & Presence Service (Unified CM IM&P) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to read arbitrary files on the underlying operating system of an affected device. This vulnerability is due to insufficient file permission restrictions. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted command from the API to the application. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to read arbitrary files on the underlying operating system of the affected device. The attacker would need valid user credentials to exploit this vulnerability.

Weakness: CWE-22 (Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory), CWE-36 (Absolute Path Traversal)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-20791?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Im and Presence Service.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-20791?

No fix has been published for CVE-2022-20791 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2022-20791 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-20791 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Unified Communications Manager

- [CVE-2026-20230](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20230/): Cisco Unified Communications Manager Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) (high 8.6, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-20045](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20045/): Cisco Unified Communications Products Code Injection (high 8.2, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-20309](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20309/): Cisco Unified Communications Manager Static SSH Credentials Vulnerability (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2011-1643](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2011-1643/): Information disclosure in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2024-20253](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-20253/): Deserialization in Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise (critical 9.9)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-20791 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-20791 is a medium-severity path traversal vulnerability in Cisco Unified Communications Manager, published on 6 Jul 2022. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-20791 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Unified Communications Manager. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-20791/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-20791/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-20791
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-20791
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-20791

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-20791/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.