THREATPORT/VULNERABILITY/CVE-2025-20188
CRITICAL SEVERITY

CVE-2025-20188

Ios Xe vulnerability

CVSS
10.0
EPSS
17.9%
EPSS pct
97th
Exploited
No known
A vulnerability in the Out-of-Band Access Point (AP) Image Download, the Clean Air Spectral Recording, and the client debug bundles features of Cisco IOS XE Software for Wireless LAN Controllers (WLCs) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to upload arbitrary files to an affected system. This vulnerability is due to the presence of a hard-coded JSON Web Token (JWT) on an affected system. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted HTTPS requests to the AP file upload interface. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to upload files, perform path traversal, and execute arbitrary commands with root privileges.
Affected vendor
Cisco
Affected product
Ios Xe
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness type (CWE)
  • CWE-798 — Use of Hard-coded Credentials
Published
2025-05-07

Risk analysis

Based on its CVSS vector, this vulnerability is exploitable over the network, low attack complexity, requiring no privileges, no user interaction. Successful exploitation leads to high impact to confidentiality, high impact to integrity, high impact to availability.

Its EPSS score of 17.9% reflects a moderate probability of exploitation activity in the wild over the next 30 days, placing it above 97% of all scored CVEs.

Check your external exposure to CVE-2025-20188

  • Confirm whether Cisco Ios Xe is running on any internet-facing host or subdomain.
  • Match discovered service fingerprints against the version affected by CVE-2025-20188.
  • Prioritise remediation if the asset is public, business-critical, or near authentication/payment flows.

How ThreatPort helps with CVE-2025-20188

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