Full Report
As the summer heat intensifies, so does the wave of critical vulnerabilities heating up the cyber threat landscape. Hot on the heels of the disclosure of the CVE-2025-49144 vulnerability in Notepad++, multiple critical flaws in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and ISE Passive Identity Connector (ISE-PIC) have come to light. The newly identified flaws tracked […] The post CVE-2025-20281 and CVE-2025-20282 Vulnerabilities: Critical RCE Flaws in Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC Enable Root Access appeared first on SOC Prime.
Analysis Summary
# Vulnerability: Critical Unauthenticated RCE in Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC
## CVE Details
- CVE ID: CVE-2025-20281, CVE-2025-20282
- CVSS Score: Not explicitly provided. Implied Critical due to RCE and low complexity.
- CWE: Not specified in the summary.
## Affected Systems
- Products: Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and ISE Policy-Based Access Controller (ISE-PIC)
- Versions: All versions prior to the patched versions below.
- Configurations: Not specified, implied to affect standard installations.
## Vulnerability Description
CVE-2025-20281 and CVE-2025-20282 are critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaws affecting Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC. Exploitation of these vulnerabilities does not require user interaction or prior authentication, allowing an unauthenticated, remote attacker to potentially gain root access to the affected systems.
## Exploitation
- Status: No evidence of active exploitation reported by Cisco at the time of the summary.
- Complexity: Low (Implied, due to lack of authentication/user interaction requirement).
- Attack Vector: Network (Implied, due to remote execution potential without required input).
## Impact
- Confidentiality: High (Likely, due to potential for root access).
- Integrity: High (Likely, due to potential for root access).
- Availability: High (Likely, due to potential for root access).
## Remediation
### Patches
- **CVE-2025-20281:** Fixed in ISE/ISE-PIC **3.3 Patch 6** and **3.4 Patch 2** (and newer).
- **CVE-2025-20282:** Fixed in ISE/ISE-PIC **3.4 Patch 2** (and newer).
Users are strongly urged to upgrade to the resolved versions immediately.
### Workarounds
- Currently, **no workarounds are available**. Immediate patching is the recommended action.
## Detection
- Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) are not detailed in this summary.
- Detection strategies should focus on monitoring network traffic directed at ISE/ISE-PIC management interfaces for any unusual connection attempts or anomalous activity, especially as the vendor advisory should contain specific details.
## References
- Vendor Advisories: hxxps://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-ise-unauth-rce-ZAd2GnJ6
- Relevant links: None provided for further technical deep dives besides the Cisco advisory.