Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:NSummary
CVE-2026-20148 is a medium-severity Path Traversal (CWE-22) vulnerability in Cisco Identity Services Engine. Its CVSS base score is 4.9 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data from Local System (T1005); ranked in the top 7% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-22963
Vulnerability Data
A vulnerability in Cisco ISE and Cisco ISE-PIC could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to perform path traversal attacks on the underlying operating system and read arbitrary files. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have valid administrative credentials. This…
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vulnerability is due to improper validation of user-supplied input. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted HTTP request to an affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to access sensitive files on the affected system.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Path traversal allows direct arbitrary file read on the local system (T1005) after valid admin auth.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly counters the root cause (improper validation of user-supplied path input in HTTP requests) that enables the CWE-22 traversal.
Enforces access restrictions so that even authenticated admin sessions cannot reach arbitrary OS files outside intended directories.
Boundary protection mechanisms (e.g., application-layer filtering or reverse-proxy rules) can block crafted traversal requests before they reach the vulnerable endpoint.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Patching/maintenance can remediate known path-traversal flaws in deployed software (partial prevention of exploitability) but does nothing to stop the coding defect from being introduced in the first place.
PR.AA-05 defines and reviews access policies but does not address code-level pathname neutralization, so neither direction prevents CWE-22.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Security testing in development catches path traversal via static/dynamic analysis.
Secure SDLC mandates input validation and path sanitization that directly prevent path traversal.
Application security requirements include rules for safe file handling and canonicalization.
Secure architecture principles require least-privilege file access and directory isolation.
Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe path construction and mandate safe APIs.
Information access restriction limits which files an application may read or write.