CVE-2021-1391: Cisco IOS and IOS XE Software Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.7 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2021-03-24 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-489

Description

A vulnerability in the dragonite debugger of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to escalate from privilege level 15 to root privilege. The vulnerability is due to the presence of development testing and verification scripts that remained on the device. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by bypassing the consent token mechanism with the residual scripts on the affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to escalate from privilege level 15 to root privilege.

Affected products

Cisco IOS: 12.2(6)i1, 15.0(2)se13a, 15.1(3)svr1, 15.1(3)svr2, 15.1(3)svr3, 15.1(3)svs (+38)
Cisco IOS XE: 3.9.0e, 3.9.1e, 3.9.2be, 3.9.2e, 3.10.0ce, 3.10.0e (+84)

References

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