CVE-2026-20127 — Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller and Manager Authentication Bypass Vulnerability

Exploitation status

CVE-2026-20127 is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, added 2026-02-25. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller, formerly SD-WAN vSmart, and Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, formerly SD-WAN vManage, contain an authentication bypass vulnerability could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and obtain administrative privileges on an affected system. This vulnerability exists because the peering authentication mechanism in an affected system is not working properly. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted requests to an affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to log in to an affected Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller as an internal, high-privileged, non-root user account. Using this account, the attacker could access NETCONF, which would then allow the attacker to manipulate network configuration for the SD-WAN fabric.

Advisory facts

Vendor or project

Cisco

Affected product

Catalyst SD-WAN Controller and Manager

Added to CISA KEV

2026-02-25

US federal remediation due date

2026-02-27

Ransomware association

Unknown

EPSS score

57.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days

Weakness (CWE)

CWE-287

Remediation: the required action

Please adhere to CISA’s guidelines to assess exposure and mitigate risks associated with Cisco SD-WAN devices as outlines in CISA’s Emergency Directive 26-03 (URL listed below in Notes) and CISA’s “Hunt & Hardening Guidance for Cisco SD-WAN Devices (URL listed below in Notes). Adhere to the applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are not available.

Wording published by CISA for this catalog entry. It is the baseline action, not a decision about your environment: whether this exposure matters for you depends on where the affected component runs, what it is exposed to and who owns it.

From advisory to a decision you can defend

A catalog entry tells you a vulnerability is being exploited somewhere. It does not tell you whether it matters in your estate, who owns the fix, or what evidence an auditor will ask for later. That is the work VulnTrek does: it takes findings from the tools you already run, decides which exposure actually matters, routes it to an owner, keeps remediation human-approved and retains the lineage as evidence.