What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2022-20855: Cisco IOS XE Software for Embedded Wireless Controllers on Catalyst Access Points 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: 2022-09-30 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-266

Description

A vulnerability in the self-healing functionality of Cisco IOS XE Software for Embedded Wireless Controllers on Catalyst Access Points could allow an authenticated, local attacker to escape the restricted controller shell and execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system of the access point. This vulnerability is due to improper checks throughout the restart of certain system processes. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by logging on to an affected device and executing certain CLI commands. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying OS as root. To successfully exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need valid credentials for a privilege level 15 user of the wireless controller.

Affected products

• Cisco IOS XE: 17.6.1

References

• https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-ewc-priv-esc-nderYLtK
• https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-ewc-priv-esc-nderYLtK

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