Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-20242 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-20242 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-20242?
- Critical severity, with a CVSS score of 9.8, published 16 September 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center multiple versions affected; see Cisco Software Checker for specific release information.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-20242?
- 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-2026-20242 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a network appliance.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-20242?
- Check whether you run Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center 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
The vulnerability is an insecure Java deserialization flaw (CWE-502) in the External Database Access feature of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center. An unauthenticated remote attacker who controls a host configured in the external database access list can exploit this by sending a crafted serialized Java byte stream to a specific TCP port. The vulnerability allows arbitrary command execution with root privileges. Cisco has released software updates to address this issue; no workarounds are available, though disabling External Database Access mitigates the risk until patching.
Affected products
- Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center multiple versions affected; see Cisco Software Checker for specific release information
Timeline
- 2026-09-16: disclosed: CVE-2026-20242 published by Cisco