# CVE-2022-20859: Cisco Unified Communications Products Access Control Vulnerability

> Authenticated attackers with read-only privileges can perform unauthorized administrative actions due to insufficient access control checks in the Disaster Recovery framework.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/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-vjcc-9q9g-593v

## What is CVE-2022-20859?

CVE-2022-20859 is a medium-severity missing authorization 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 Disaster Recovery framework of Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM), Cisco Unified Communications Manager IM & Presence Service (Unified CM IM&P), and Cisco Unity Connection could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to perform certain administrative actions they should not be able to. This vulnerability is due to insufficient access control checks on the affected device. An attacker with read-only privileges could exploit this vulnerability by executing a specific vulnerable command on an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to perform a set of administrative actions they should not be able to.

Weakness: CWE-284 (Improper Access Control)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-20859?

It affects 3 products.


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

## How do I fix CVE-2022-20859?

No fix has been published for CVE-2022-20859 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2022-20859 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-20859 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-2022-20859 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-20859 is a medium-severity missing authorization 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-2022-20859 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-2022-20859/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-20859/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-20859
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-20859
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-20859

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-20859/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.