Post

Urgent: Critical RCE Vulnerabilities in Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC Enable Unauthenticated Root Access

Posted
By Vitus White
2 min read
Urgent: Critical RCE Vulnerabilities in Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC Enable Unauthenticated Root Access

TL;DR

Cisco has disclosed two critical remote code execution (RCE) flaws in its Identity Services Engine (ISE) and ISE Passive Identity Connector (ISE-PIC). These vulnerabilities, assigned CVE-2025-20281 and CVE-2025-20282, allow unauthenticated attackers to gain root access, posing a significant security risk1.

Critical RCE Flaws in Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC

Cisco has recently issued updates to address two severe security vulnerabilities in its Identity Services Engine (ISE) and ISE Passive Identity Connector (ISE-PIC). These flaws, identified as CVE-2025-20281 and CVE-2025-20282, have been assigned the maximum CVSS score of 10.0, indicating their critical nature.

Vulnerability Details

The vulnerabilities enable an unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges. This level of access could allow attackers to take full control of the affected systems, leading to severe security breaches.

CVE-2025-20281

This flaw affects the core components of Cisco ISE, allowing remote command execution without proper authentication. The issue lies in the way ISE handles certain input data, which can be exploited to inject malicious commands.

CVE-2025-20282

This vulnerability is specific to the ISE-PIC component, which is used for passive identity tracking. Similar to CVE-2025-20281, this flaw permits unauthenticated users to execute arbitrary commands as the root user, compromising the entire system.

Impact and Mitigation

Organizations using Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC are urged to apply the latest security patches immediately. The potential impact of these vulnerabilities includes:

  • Complete system compromise: Attackers can gain full control over the affected devices.
  • Data breaches: Sensitive information could be accessed or exfiltrated.
  • Operational disruption: Critical services may be interrupted, leading to downtime and financial losses.

To mitigate the risks associated with these vulnerabilities, Cisco recommends the following steps:

  1. Apply Security Patches: Ensure that all instances of Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC are updated to the latest versions.
  2. Network Segmentation: Implement strict network segmentation to isolate critical systems.
  3. Monitoring and Alerts: Enhance monitoring to detect any suspicious activities and set up alerts for unusual behaviors.

Conclusion

The discovery of these critical RCE vulnerabilities in Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC underscores the importance of timely security updates and proactive mitigation strategies. Organizations must remain vigilant and prioritize patch management to protect against such high-severity threats1.

Additional Resources

For further insights, check:

References

  1. (2025). “Critical RCE Flaws in Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC Allow Unauthenticated Attackers to Gain Root Access”. The Hacker News. Retrieved 2025-06-26. ↩︎ ↩︎2

Cybersecurity & Data Protection, Vulnerabilities
cybersecurity vulnerability cisco
This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.