Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-20042 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-20042 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-20042?
- Medium severity, with a CVSS score of 6.5, published 1 April 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Cisco Nexus Dashboard All versions prior to 4.2.1.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-20042?
- No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.
- How is CVE-2026-20042 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a network appliance.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-20042?
- Check whether you run Cisco Nexus Dashboard at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
A vulnerability in the configuration backup feature of Cisco Nexus Dashboard arises because authentication details are improperly included within encrypted backup files. An attacker who possesses a 'Full' or 'Config-only' backup file and the corresponding encryption password can decrypt the file to retrieve these credentials. These credentials can then be used to authenticate against internal-only REST APIs. Successful exploitation allows the attacker to bypass intended access controls and execute arbitrary commands on the underlying Linux operating system with root privileges. The vulnerability is addressed in Cisco Nexus Dashboard version 4.2.1 and later.
Affected products
- Cisco Nexus Dashboard All versions prior to 4.2.1
Timeline
- 2026-04-01: disclosed: Initial public release of Cisco advisory
- 2026-04-01: advisory: Cisco Security Advisory cisco-sa-nd-cbid-5YqkOSHu published
- 2026-07-08: other: NIST initial analysis and CPE mapping completed