Vulnerability in Cisco iOS Xr Software

CVE-2026-20279

As part of Cisco's ongoing commitment to proactive security and product quality, the Cisco IOS XR Software engineering team has conducted a comprehensive internal security review. This review resulted in a software hardening releases that address multiple internally discovered vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities tracked by CVE-2026-20279 are related to improper access control issues that are grouped under the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) CWE-284.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (21.4th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 21st percentile — 21.4% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-20279: held from 0.003 to 0.003.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.003 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-20279?
CVE-2026-20279 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Cisco iOS Xr Software, classified under Improper Access Control. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2026-09-02.
How severe is CVE-2026-20279?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.