An unknown threat actor exploited a recently disclosed high-severity security flaw impacting Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN as a zero-day at least two months before it was publicly disclosed, according to new findings from Google-owned Mandiant. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-20245 (CVSS score: 7.8), allows an authenticated, local attacker to execute arbitrary commands with elevated privileges

New details have been revealed on how hackers exploited a Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-20245 in zero-day attacks to create rogue root accounts on targeted devices. [...]

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added three new vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, following reports of active exploitation. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2026-20245 (CVSS score: 7.8) - An improper encoding or escaping of output vulnerability in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager that could allow an

CISA has added three new vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog , based on evidence of active exploitation. CVE-2026-7473 Arista Extensible Operating System Incomplete Comparison with Missing Factors Vulnerability CVE-2026-11645 Google Chromium V8 Out-of-Bounds Read and Write Vulnerability CVE-2026-20245 Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager Improper Encoding or Escaping of Output Vulnerability These types of vulnerabilities are a frequent attack vector for malicious cyber actors and pose significant risks to the federal enterprise. Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01: Reducing the Significant Risk of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities established the KEV Catalog as a living list of known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) that carry significant risk to the federal enterprise. BOD 22-01 requires Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to remediate identified vulnerabilities by the due date to protect FCEB networks against active threats. See the BOD 22-01 Fact Sheet for more information. Although BOD 22-01 only applies to FCEB agencies, CISA strongly urges all organizations to reduce their exposure to cyberattacks by prioritizing timely remediation of KEV Catalog vulnerabilities as part of their vulnerability management practice. CISA will continue to add vulnerabilities to the catalog that meet the specified criteria . 

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager formerly SD-WAN vManage contains an improper encoding or escaping of output vulnerability. This vulnerability could allow an authenticated, local attacker to execute arbitrary commands as root by supplying a crafted file to the affected system.

Cisco has warned that a high-severity security flaw impacting Catalyst SD-WAN Manager has come under active exploitation. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-20245, carries a CVSS score of 7.8 out of a maximum of 10.0. It affects the following deployment types - On-Prem Deployment Cisco SD-WAN Cloud-Pro Cisco SD-WAN Cloud (Cisco Managed) Cisco SD-WAN for Government (FedRAMP) "A