Threats / Cisco / CVE-2026-20045
CVE-2026-20045
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
Cisco Unified Communications Manager vulnerability
Cisco Unified Communications Manager and related products contain a code injection vulnerability allowing attackers to gain user-level OS access and escalate to root privileges.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
Code injection in Unified CM enables initial OS access with subsequent privilege escalation to root. Active exploitation observed in the wild. Affects multiple Cisco collaboration platforms including Unified CM, SME, IM&P, Unity Connection, and Webex Calling Dedicated Instance.
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
4 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 2026-01-21).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.04307 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Cisco, Unified Communications Manager. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-94 Code Injection — weakness family: Injection.CWE assignment from the public NVD record; the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
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 inject malicious code through an input vector in Unified CM to execute arbitrary commands at user privilege level.
Business
Attacker gains foothold on critical communications infrastructure with ability to execute code.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I escalate from user-level access to root privileges on the underlying operating system.
Business
Complete system compromise enables attacker to control communications platform, access sensitive data, and persist across restarts.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I maintain persistent root access to the Unified CM infrastructure.
Business
Organization loses control of voice, video, and messaging systems; confidentiality and integrity of all communications at risk.
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.
05