Cisco Identity Services Engine Injection Vulnerability (CVE-2025-20281)
Severity: critical · Patch status: unknown · Since 2025-07-28 · CVE-2025-20281
Cisco Identity Services Engine contains an injection vulnerability in a specific API of Cisco ISE and Cisco ISE-PIC due to insufficient validation of user-supplied input allowing an attacker to exploit this vulnerability by submitting a crafted API request. Successful exploitation could allow an attacker to perform remote code execution and obtaining root privileges on an affected device. CISA added CVE-2025-20281 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on Jul 28, 2025, which means attackers are exploiting it in the wild.
What to do
- Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
- US federal agencies must remediate by Aug 18, 2025 (BOD 22-01); treat that as the outer limit.
Sources
All live incidents on Threat Watch
