Threats / Cisco / CVE-2022-20775
CVE-2022-20775
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-08-04
Cisco SD-WAN vulnerability
Cisco SD-WAN CLI contains a path traversal vulnerability allowing authenticated local attackers to bypass access controls and execute arbitrary commands with root privileges.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An authenticated local attacker can exploit improper access controls in SD-WAN CLI commands to traverse the filesystem and execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges, potentially compromising system integrity and confidentiality.
CISA KEV Yes · 2026-02-255EPSS 0.12475 (verify live)6CVSS 7.83CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: total4
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
9 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2026-02-25).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.12475 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 7.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) · Affected: Cisco, SD-WAN. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CNA-assigned (CVE.org), version 3.1, set at disclosure.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-25 CWE-25 — weakness family: Path traversal / file.CWE — CNA-assigned (CVE.org); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Technical Impact: totalCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 1244 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I authenticate to the SD-WAN CLI as a standard user with limited privileges.
Business
Legitimate user accounts are provisioned for operational access to network appliances.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I craft a path traversal payload in a CLI command to bypass directory restrictions.
Business
Access control enforcement on CLI commands fails to validate or sanitize user input.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I execute the malicious command and gain root-level code execution on the device.
Business
The SD-WAN appliance is fully compromised, allowing the attacker to modify configurations, exfiltrate data, or pivot to connected networks.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05