CVE-2025-20155: cisco cisco ios xe software

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-20155 is a medium (CVSS 6.0) vulnerability in cisco cisco ios xe software. EPSS estimates a 0.17% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 6.5% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 07-05-2025
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 26-02-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

A vulnerability in the bootstrap loading of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to write arbitrary files to an affected system. This vulnerability is due to insufficient input validation of the bootstrap file that is read by the system software when a device is first deployed in SD-WAN mode or when an administrator configures SD-Routing on the device. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by modifying a bootstrap file generated by Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, loading it into the device flash, and then either reloading the device in a green field deployment in SD-WAN mode or configuring the device with SD-Routing. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to perform arbitrary file writes to the underlying operating system.

• CWE-1287Improper Validation of Specified Type of InputThe product receives input that is expected to be of a certain type, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input is actually of the expected type.