CVE-2023-20198

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    CVE-2023-20198

    Published: 16 Oct 2023Last Modified: 11 Mar 2026

    Summary:

    Details: Cisco is providing an update for the ongoing investigation into observed exploitation of the web UI feature in Cisco IOS XE Software. We are updating the list of fixed releases and adding the Software Checker. Our investigation has determined that the actors exploited two previously unknown issues. The attacker first exploited CVE-2023-20198 to gain initial access and issued a privilege 15 command to create a local user and password combination. This allowed the user to log in with normal user access. The attacker then exploited another component of the web UI feature, leveraging the new local user to elevate privilege to root and write the implant to the file system. Cisco has assigned CVE-2023-20273 to this issue. CVE-2023-20198 has been assigned a CVSS Score of 10.0. CVE-2023-20273 has been assigned a CVSS Score of 7.2. Both of these CVEs are being tracked by CSCwh87343.

    References: https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2023-20198, , https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-iosxe-webui-privesc-j22SaA4z

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name:

    Purl:

    Affected ranges

    Type: N/A

    Events:

    Introduced- None
    Fixed -None

    Affected versions

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High
    CVE-2023-20198 | CVE-DB