What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-20079: Cisco Firewall Management Center Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel Vulnerability

• Severity: critical (CVSS 10.0 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: yes — in CISA KEV since 2026-09-09
• EPSS: 88.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2026-03-04 · updated 2026-09-16
• Weakness: CWE-288

Description

A vulnerability in the web interface of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and execute script files on an affected device to obtain root access to the underlying operating system.  This vulnerability is due to an improper system process that is created at boot time. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted HTTP requests to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute a variety of scripts and commands that allow root access to the device. 

Affected products

• Cisco Firepower Management Center: 7.0.0, 7.0.0.1, 7.0.1, 7.0.1.1, 7.0.2, 7.0.2.1 (+66)

References

• https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-onprem-fmc-authbypass-5JPp45V2
• http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2026/Aug/80
• https://blog.talosintelligence.com/fmc-ongoing-exploitation/
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2026-20079

Get alerted when CVE-2026-20079 or the next vulnerability affects your stack