CVE-2026-20092 Cisco Intersight Virtual Appliance Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
An authenticated local attacker with admin privileges can exploit improper file permissions in the maintenance shell to escalate to root, gaining full control of the virtual appliance.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-20092?
CVE-2026-20092 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Cisco Intersight Virtual Appliance, published on 21 Jan 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A vulnerability in the read-only maintenance shell of Cisco Intersight Virtual Appliance could allow an authenticated, local attacker with administrative privileges to elevate privileges to root on the virtual appliance. This vulnerability is due to improper file permissions on configuration files for system accounts within the maintenance shell of the virtual appliance. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by accessing the maintenance shell as a read-only administrator and manipulating system files to grant root privileges. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to elevate their privileges to root on the virtual appliance and gain full control of the appliance, giving them the ability to access sensitive information, modify workloads and configurations on the host system, and cause a denial of service (DoS).
Weakness: CWE-732
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-20092?
How do I fix CVE-2026-20092?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-20092 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-20092 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-20092 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-78gw-pgqh-jc7g.