# CVE-2025-20112: Cisco Unified Communications Products Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

> Authenticated local attackers with ESXi admin access can escape restricted shells to gain root privileges on Cisco Unified Communications products.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.1 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 21 May 2025
- **Updated:** 26 Feb 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-xq83-m7pg-gg42

## What is CVE-2025-20112?

CVE-2025-20112 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Cisco Emergency Responder, published on 21 May 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability in multiple Cisco Unified Communications and Contact Center Solutions products could allow an authenticated, local attacker to elevate privileges to root on an affected device.

This vulnerability is due to excessive permissions that have been assigned to system commands. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by executing crafted commands on the underlying operating system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to escape the restricted shell and gain root privileges on the underlying operating system of an affected device. To successfully exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need administrative access to the ESXi hypervisor.

Weakness: CWE-268 (Privilege Chaining)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-20112?


## How do I fix CVE-2025-20112?

No fix has been published for CVE-2025-20112 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2025-20112 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-20112 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-20112 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-20112 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Cisco Emergency Responder, published on 21 May 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-20112 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Emergency Responder. 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-2025-20112/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20112/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-20112
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-20112
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-20112

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20112/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.