CVE-2026-20045: Cisco Unified Communications Products Code Injection Vulnerability

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities

Name

Cisco Unified Communications Products Code Injection Vulnerability

Vendor

Cisco

Product

Unified Communications Manager

Added to the catalog

2026-01-21

Due date for US federal agencies

2026-02-11

Weaknesses

CWE-94

Catalog version

2026.10.30

Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM), Cisco Unified Communications Manager Session Management Edition (Unified CM SME), Cisco Unified Communications Manager IM & Presence Service (Unified CM IM&P), Cisco Unity Connection, and Cisco Webex Calling Dedicated Instance contain a code injection vulnerability that could allow the attacker to obtain user-level access to the underlying operating system and then elevate privileges to root.

Required action (CISA)

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Ransomware use: CISA does not mark known use of this vulnerability in ransomware campaigns.

Links in CISA's notes

• https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-voice-rce-mORhqY4b
• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-20045

Read on 2026-11-02T23:39:54.475Z under licence cisa-kev-cc0@b0067899 from https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/feeds/known_exploited_vulnerabilities.json

NVD analysis

Status

Analyzed

Published

2026-01-21T17:16:08.077

Last modified

2026-06-17T10:16:58.097

Weaknesses

CWE-94

A vulnerability in Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM), Cisco Unified Communications Manager Session Management Edition (Unified CM SME), Cisco Unified Communications Manager IM & Presence Service (Unified CM IM&P), Cisco Unity Connection, and Cisco Webex Calling Dedicated Instance could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system of an affected device. 

This vulnerability is due to improper validation of user-supplied input in HTTP requests. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a sequence of crafted HTTP requests to the web-based management interface of an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to obtain user-level access to the underlying operating system and then elevate privileges to root. 
Note: Cisco has assigned this security advisory a Security Impact Rating (SIR) of Critical rather than High as the score indicates. The reason is that exploitation of this vulnerability could result in an attacker elevating privileges to root.

References

• https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-voice-rce-mORhqY4b (Vendor Advisory)
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2026-20045 (US Government Resource)

This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.

Read on 2026-11-02T23:42:22.836Z under licence nvd-api-terms-of-use@ff2a5288 from https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?cveId=CVE-2026-20045

CVE record

Title (CNA)

Cisco Unified Communications Products Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

Assigner

cisco

State

PUBLISHED

Published

2026-01-21T16:26:20.312Z

Updated

2026-02-26T14:44:34.950Z

Problem types

Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

A vulnerability in Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM), Cisco Unified Communications Manager Session Management Edition (Unified CM SME), Cisco Unified Communications Manager IM & Presence Service (Unified CM IM&P), Cisco Unity Connection, and Cisco Webex Calling Dedicated Instance could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system of an affected device. 

This vulnerability is due to improper validation of user-supplied input in HTTP requests. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a sequence of crafted HTTP requests to the web-based management interface of an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to obtain user-level access to the underlying operating system and then elevate privileges to root. 
Note: Cisco has assigned this security advisory a Security Impact Rating (SIR) of Critical rather than High as the score indicates. The reason is that exploitation of this vulnerability could result in an attacker elevating privileges to root.

References

• cisco-sa-voice-rce-mORhqY4b

Read on 2026-11-03T02:18:48.452Z under licence cve-terms-of-use@81bfa2f3 from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/main/cves/2026/20xxx/CVE-2026-20045.json

Defensive techniques (MITRE D3FEND)

D3FEND maps these defensive techniques to the weakness (CWE) that NVD lists for this CVE, through the digital artifacts the weakness affects. D3FEND does not say they stop this vulnerability.

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