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CVE-2020-3213: Cisco IOS XE Software Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

• Severity: medium (CVSS 6.7 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2020-06-03 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-264

Description

A vulnerability in the ROMMON of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to elevate privileges to those of the root user of the underlying operating system. The vulnerability is due to the ROMMON allowing for special parameters to be passed to the device at initial boot up. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending parameters to the device at initial boot up. An exploit could allow the attacker to elevate from a Priv15 user to the root user and execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the root user.

Affected products

• Cisco IOS XE: 3.8.0s, 3.8.1s, 3.8.2s, 3.9.0as, 3.9.0s, 3.9.1as (+186)

References

• https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-priv-esc3-GMgnGCHx
• https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-priv-esc3-GMgnGCHx

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