Threats / Cisco / CVE-2023-20198
CVE-2023-20198
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
Cisco IOS XE Web UI vulnerability
Cisco IOS XE Web UI contains a privilege escalation vulnerability allowing remote unauthenticated attackers to create administrative accounts and gain full device control.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
A remote unauthenticated attacker can exploit this vulnerability to create a privilege level 15 account on affected Cisco IOS XE devices, achieving complete administrative control without prior authentication.
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreExploit available
Fully weaponized — public exploit code is cataloged for this vulnerability.We link the existence of the exploit; we do not host or redistribute payloads.
Reported exploitation
1020 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-10-16).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.99571 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Cisco, IOS XE Web UI. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-420 CWE-420.CWE assignment from the public NVD record; the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
WeaknessCWE-420 · CWE-420
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I access the web UI of a vulnerable Cisco IOS XE device without authentication.
Business
Network infrastructure becomes exposed to unauthorized access attempts.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I exploit the privilege escalation flaw to create a new administrative account with level 15 privileges.
Business
Attacker gains persistent administrative access to critical network equipment.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I use the newly created account to log in and assume full control of the device.
Business
Attacker can modify configurations, intercept traffic, or disable security controls on the device.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
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