A vulnerability in the read-only maintenance shell of Cisco Intersight Virtual Appliance could allow an authenticated, local attacker with administrative privileges to elevate privileges to root on the virtual appliance. This vulnerability is due to improper file permissions on configuration files for system accounts within the maintenance shell of the virtual appliance. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by accessing the maintenance shell as a read-only administrator and manipulating system files to grant root privileges. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to elevate their privileges to root on the virtual appliance and gain full control of the appliance, giving them the ability to access sensitive information, modify workloads and configurations on the host system, and cause a denial of service (DoS).
History

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}


Wed, 21 Jan 2026 16:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description A vulnerability in the read-only maintenance shell of Cisco Intersight Virtual Appliance could allow an authenticated, local attacker with administrative privileges to elevate privileges to root on the virtual appliance. This vulnerability is due to improper file permissions on configuration files for system accounts within the maintenance shell of the virtual appliance. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by accessing the maintenance shell as a read-only administrator and manipulating system files to grant root privileges. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to elevate their privileges to root on the virtual appliance and gain full control of the appliance, giving them the ability to access sensitive information, modify workloads and configurations on the host system, and cause a denial of service (DoS).
Title Cisco Intersight Virtual Appliance Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
Weaknesses CWE-732
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 6, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N'}


cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: cisco

Published:

Updated: 2026-01-21T16:52:29.637Z

Reserved: 2025-10-08T11:59:15.368Z

Link: CVE-2026-20092

cve-icon Vulnrichment

Updated: 2026-01-21T16:52:21.316Z

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-01-21T17:16:08.570

Modified: 2026-01-21T17:16:08.570

Link: CVE-2026-20092

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.