Medium severity · published Mar 4, 2026
CVE-2026-20009
Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance SSH Partial Private Key Authentication Bypass Vulnerability
5.3
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
A vulnerability in the implementation of the proprietary SSH stack with SSH key-based authentication in Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to log in to a Cisco Secure Firewall ASA device and execute commands as a specific user.
This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user input during the SSH authentication phase. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by submitting crafted input during SSH authentication to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to log in to the device as a specific user without the private SSH key of that user. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must possess a valid username and the associated public key. The private key is not required.
Notes:
Exploitation of this vulnerability does not provide the attacker with root access.
The authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) configuration command auto-enable is not affected by this vulnerability.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
None
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 35% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
CS
Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software · Cisco
9.17.1; 9.17.1.7; 9.17.1.9; 9.17.1.10; 9.18.1; 9.18.1.3; +34 more · source: vendor
AS
Adaptive Security Appliance Software · Cisco
9.17.1 before 9.18.4.71; 9.19.1 before 9.20.4.10; 9.22.1.1 before 9.22.2.14; 9.23.1 before 9.23.1.19 · source: NVD
Affected product
CS
Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
Cisco
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-20009
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-20009
Vendor Advisory
https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-asa-ssh-keybypass-cr5xPUSf
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