CVE-2025-20186 Vulnerability Analysis & Exploit Details

CVE-2025-20186
Vulnerability Scoring

8.8
/10
Severe Risk

Cybersecurity professionals consider CVE-2025-20186 an immediate threat requiring urgent mitigation.

Attack Complexity Details

  • Attack Complexity: Low
    Exploits can be performed without significant complexity or special conditions.
  • Attack Vector: Network
    Vulnerability is exploitable over a network without physical access.
  • Privileges Required: Low
    Some privileges are necessary to exploit the vulnerability.
  • Scope: Unchanged
    Exploit remains within the originally vulnerable component.
  • User Interaction: None
    No user interaction is necessary for exploitation.

CVE-2025-20186 Details

Status: Awaiting Analysis

Last updated: 🕝 08 May 2025, 14:39 UTC
Originally published on: 🕕 07 May 2025, 18:15 UTC

CVSS Release: version 3

CVSS3 Source

psirt@cisco.com

CVSS3 Type

Primary

CVSS3 Vector

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

CVE-2025-20186 Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2025-20186: A vulnerability in the web-based management interface of the Wireless LAN Controller feature of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, remote attacker with a lobby ambassador user account to perform a command injection attack against an affected device. This vulnerability is due to insufficient input validation. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted input to the web-based management interface. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary Cisco IOS XE Software CLI commands with privilege level 15. Note: This vulnerability is exploitable only if the attacker obtains the credentials for a lobby ambassador account. This account is not configured by default.

Assessing the Risk of CVE-2025-20186

Access Complexity Graph

The exploitability of CVE-2025-20186 depends on two key factors: attack complexity (the level of effort required to execute an exploit) and privileges required (the access level an attacker needs).

Exploitability Analysis for CVE-2025-20186

CVE-2025-20186 presents an accessible attack vector with minimal effort required. Restricting access controls and implementing security updates are critical to reducing exploitation risks.

Understanding AC and PR

A lower complexity and fewer privilege requirements make exploitation easier. Security teams should evaluate these aspects to determine the urgency of mitigation strategies, such as patch management and access control policies.

Attack Complexity (AC) measures the difficulty in executing an exploit. A high AC means that specific conditions must be met, making an attack more challenging, while a low AC means the vulnerability can be exploited with minimal effort.

Privileges Required (PR) determine the level of system access necessary for an attack. Vulnerabilities requiring no privileges are more accessible to attackers, whereas high privilege requirements limit exploitation to authorized users with elevated access.

CVSS Score Breakdown Chart

Above is the CVSS Sub-score Breakdown for CVE-2025-20186, illustrating how Base, Impact, and Exploitability factors combine to form the overall severity rating. A higher sub-score typically indicates a more severe or easier-to-exploit vulnerability.

CIA Impact Analysis

Below is the Impact Analysis for CVE-2025-20186, showing how Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability might be affected if the vulnerability is exploited. Higher values usually signal greater potential damage.

  • Confidentiality: High
    Exploiting CVE-2025-20186 can result in unauthorized access to sensitive data, severely compromising data privacy.
  • Integrity: High
    CVE-2025-20186 could allow unauthorized modifications to data, potentially affecting system reliability and trust.
  • Availability: High
    CVE-2025-20186 can disrupt system operations, potentially causing complete denial of service (DoS).

CVE-2025-20186 References

External References

CWE Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-78

CAPEC Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification

  • Command Line Execution through SQL Injection CAPEC-108 An attacker uses standard SQL injection methods to inject data into the command line for execution. This could be done directly through misuse of directives such as MSSQL_xp_cmdshell or indirectly through injection of data into the database that would be interpreted as shell commands. Sometime later, an unscrupulous backend application (or could be part of the functionality of the same application) fetches the injected data stored in the database and uses this data as command line arguments without performing proper validation. The malicious data escapes that data plane by spawning new commands to be executed on the host.
  • Command Delimiters CAPEC-15 An attack of this type exploits a programs' vulnerabilities that allows an attacker's commands to be concatenated onto a legitimate command with the intent of targeting other resources such as the file system or database. The system that uses a filter or denylist input validation, as opposed to allowlist validation is vulnerable to an attacker who predicts delimiters (or combinations of delimiters) not present in the filter or denylist. As with other injection attacks, the attacker uses the command delimiter payload as an entry point to tunnel through the application and activate additional attacks through SQL queries, shell commands, network scanning, and so on.
  • Exploiting Multiple Input Interpretation Layers CAPEC-43 An attacker supplies the target software with input data that contains sequences of special characters designed to bypass input validation logic. This exploit relies on the target making multiples passes over the input data and processing a "layer" of special characters with each pass. In this manner, the attacker can disguise input that would otherwise be rejected as invalid by concealing it with layers of special/escape characters that are stripped off by subsequent processing steps. The goal is to first discover cases where the input validation layer executes before one or more parsing layers. That is, user input may go through the following logic in an application: <parser1> --> <input validator> --> <parser2>. In such cases, the attacker will need to provide input that will pass through the input validator, but after passing through parser2, will be converted into something that the input validator was supposed to stop.
  • Argument Injection CAPEC-6 An attacker changes the behavior or state of a targeted application through injecting data or command syntax through the targets use of non-validated and non-filtered arguments of exposed services or methods.
  • OS Command Injection CAPEC-88 In this type of an attack, an adversary injects operating system commands into existing application functions. An application that uses untrusted input to build command strings is vulnerable. An adversary can leverage OS command injection in an application to elevate privileges, execute arbitrary commands and compromise the underlying operating system.

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