What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-34724: Cisco IOS XE SD-WAN Software Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

• Severity: medium (CVSS 6.0 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: 2021-09-23 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-284

Description

A vulnerability in the Cisco IOS XE SD-WAN Software CLI could allow an authenticated, local attacker to elevate privileges and execute arbitrary code on the underlying operating system as the root user. An attacker must be authenticated on an affected device as a PRIV15 user. This vulnerability is due to insufficient file system protection and the presence of a sensitive file in the bootflash directory on an affected device. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by overwriting an installer file stored in the bootflash directory with arbitrary commands that can be executed with root-level privileges. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to read and write changes to the configuration database on the affected device.

Affected products

• Cisco IOS XE SD-WAN Software: through 17.3.1a

References

• https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-iosxesdwan-privesc-VP4FG3jD
• https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-iosxesdwan-privesc-VP4FG3jD

Get alerted when CVE-2021-34724 or the next vulnerability affects your stack