Vulnerability in Cisco Asyncos

CVE-2025-20185

A vulnerability in the implementation of the remote access functionality of Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager, Cisco Secure Email Gateway, and Cisco Secure Web Appliance could allow an authenticated, local attacker to elevate privileges to root. The attacker must authenticate with valid administrator credentials. This vulnerability is due to an architectural flaw in the password generation algorithm for the remote access functionality. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by generating a temporary password for the service account. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands as root and access the underlying operating system. Note: The Security Impact Rating (SIR) for this vulnerability is Medium due to the unrestricted scope of information that is accessible to an attacker.

EPSS: 0.002 (8.3th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 3.4 (Low). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2025-20185?
CVE-2025-20185 is a low-severity vulnerability in Cisco Asyncos, classified under CWE-250. CVSS score: 3.4/10. Published 2025-02-05.
How severe is CVE-2025-20185?
Low severity. CVSS v3 base score is 3.4 out of 10.