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CVE-2026-20182

10, critical Known exploited

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller Authentication Bypass Vulnerability

NVD (opens in a new tab) CVE.org (opens in a new tab) CISA KEV catalogue (opens in a new tab)
CVSS
10, critical critical CVSS v3.1
EPSS, next 30 days
92% higher than 99.8% of scored CVEs
Exploitation
Confirmed in the wild
Published
14 May 20265 months ago

Known exploited

CISA added this to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog on 14 May 2026. US federal agencies had to remediate by 17 May 2026, a deadline that has passed.

Required action. Please adhere to CISA’s guidelines to assess exposure and mitigate risks associated with Cisco SD-WAN devices as outlined in CISA’s Emergency Directive 26-03 (URL listed below in Notes) and CISA’s Hunt & Hardening Guidance for Cisco SD-WAN Devices (URL listed below in Notes). Adhere to the applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are not available.

Description

May 2026: This security advisory provides the details and fix information for a vulnerability that was discovered and fixed after the was disclosed in February 2026. This new advisory is for a new vulnerability in the control connection handshaking. The section of this advisory includes Show Control Connections guidance to help with system checks. A vulnerability in the peering authentication in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller, formerly SD-WAN vSmart, Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, formerly SD-WAN vManage, and Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Validator, formerly SD-WAN vBond, could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and obtain administrative privileges on an affected system. This vulnerability exists because the peering authentication mechanism in an affected system is not working properly. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted requests to the affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to log in to an affected Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller as an internal, high-privileged, non-root user account. Using this account, the attacker could access NETCONF, which would then allow the attacker to manipulate network configuration for the SD-WAN fabric.

Details

Vendor
Cisco
Product
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller
Weakness
CWE-287 (opens in a new tab)
Status
Analyzed
Updated
17 Jun 2026
Assigner
psirt@cisco.com

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

References 3

Advisories 2

Other references 1

The kind is read from NVD's tags where present and from the shape of the URL otherwise, so treat it as a hint.

Other Cisco CVEs

Every Cisco CVE we hold

Same vendor in what we hold, not a known link between the flaws.

  • CVE-2026-76519 Cisco Secure Email Gateway Relative Path Traversal Vulnerability KEV EPSS 2% 9.8, critical
  • CVE-2026-76504 Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager Hex Encoding Vulnerability KEV EPSS 2% 9.8, critical
  • CVE-2026-76460 Cisco Identity Services Engine Incorrect Use of Privileged APIs Vulnerability KEV EPSS 14% 10, critical
  • CVE-2026-76461 Cisco Secure Email Gateway SQL Injection Vulnerability KEV EPSS 30% 9.8, critical
  • CVE-2026-20349 Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Heap Inspection Vulnerability KEV EPSS 1% 8.6, high
  • CVE-2026-20316 Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Use of Hard-coded Password Vulnerability KEV EPSS 35% 5.3, medium
  • CVE-2026-20262 Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager Directory or Path Traversal Vulnerability KEV EPSS 28% 6.5, medium
  • CVE-2026-20245 Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager Improper Encoding or Escaping of Output Vulnerability KEV EPSS 25% 7.8, high

Beyond this page

Is CVE-2026-20182 in your network?

This page tells you how dangerous CVE-2026-20182 is out there. Whether it sits on one of your devices, only a scan of your own network can tell. That is what our systems do, every day, for the companies we protect.

CVE-2026-20182 is in the CISA catalogue of exploited vulnerabilities: attackers are already exploiting it.

  • EXYS7600 OCELOT

    Find it before attackers do

    Ocelot scans your network on a schedule and reports every vulnerability it finds by its CVE identifier, with its CVSS score and how many of your hosts are affected. A finding like CVE-2026-20182 comes with the devices to patch.

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  • EXYS7950 KONDRA

    Detect it if it's exploited

    Until the patch is applied, Kondra monitors your network, events and endpoints in real time. It keeps an inventory of the software installed on every endpoint, and its anomaly detection rules flag what an attacker does once inside.

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Check your exposure

Assembled from the NVD 2.0 API, the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog and FIRST EPSS. Scores are as of our last collection on 17 Oct 2026, not the live upstream state.