CVE-2025-20265

10.0

CRITICAL CVSS 3.1

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Software Radius Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

Description

A vulnerability in the RADIUS subsystem implementation of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to inject arbitrary shell commands that are executed by the device.  This vulnerability is due to a lack of proper handling of user input during the authentication phase. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted input when entering credentials that will be authenticated at the configured RADIUS server. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute commands at a high privilege level. Note: For this vulnerability to be exploited, Cisco Secure FMC Software must be configured for RADIUS authentication for the web-based management interface, SSH management, or both.

INFO

Published Date :

Aug. 14, 2025, 5:15 p.m.

Last Modified :

Aug. 16, 2025, 1:15 a.m.

Remotely Exploit :

Yes !

Source :

[email protected]

Affected Products

The following products are affected by CVE-2025-20265 vulnerability. Even if cvefeed.io is aware of the exact versions of the products that are affected, the information is not represented in the table below.

ID	Vendor	Product	Action
1	Cisco	firepower_management_center
2	Cisco	secure_firewall_management_center

: Total Affected Vendor : 1 | Products : 2

CVSS Scores

The Common Vulnerability Scoring System is a standardized framework for assessing the severity of vulnerabilities in software and systems. We collect and displays CVSS scores from various sources for each CVE.

Score	Version	Severity	Vector	Exploitability Score	Impact Score	Source
	CVSS 3.1	CRITICAL				[email protected]

Solution

Remediate by applying patches and validating user input for RADIUS authentication.

Apply the latest security patches from Cisco.
Review and restrict RADIUS authentication configurations.
Validate all user input rigorously.
Monitor for unauthorized command execution.

Public PoC/Exploit Available at Github

CVE-2025-20265 has a 4 public PoC/Exploit available at Github. Go to the Public Exploits tab to see the list.

References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools

Here, you will find a curated list of external links that provide in-depth information, practical solutions, and valuable tools related to CVE-2025-20265.

URL	Resource
https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-fmc-radius-rce-TNBKf79	Vendor Advisory
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cisco-warns-of-max-severity-flaw-in-firewall-management-center/
https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/15/cisco_secure_firewall_management_bug/

CWE - Common Weakness Enumeration

While CVE identifies specific instances of vulnerabilities, CWE categorizes the common flaws or weaknesses that can lead to vulnerabilities. CVE-2025-20265 is associated with the following CWEs:

CWE-74: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component ('Injection')

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC) stores attack patterns, which are descriptions of the common attributes and approaches employed by adversaries to exploit the CVE-2025-20265 weaknesses.

CAPEC-3: Using Leading 'Ghost' Character Sequences to Bypass Input Filters Using Leading 'Ghost' Character Sequences to Bypass Input Filters CAPEC-6: Argument Injection Argument Injection CAPEC-7: Blind SQL Injection Blind SQL Injection CAPEC-8: Buffer Overflow in an API Call Buffer Overflow in an API Call CAPEC-9: Buffer Overflow in Local Command-Line Utilities Buffer Overflow in Local Command-Line Utilities CAPEC-10: Buffer Overflow via Environment Variables Buffer Overflow via Environment Variables CAPEC-13: Subverting Environment Variable Values Subverting Environment Variable Values CAPEC-14: Client-side Injection-induced Buffer Overflow Client-side Injection-induced Buffer Overflow CAPEC-24: Filter Failure through Buffer Overflow Filter Failure through Buffer Overflow CAPEC-28: Fuzzing Fuzzing CAPEC-34: HTTP Response Splitting HTTP Response Splitting CAPEC-42: MIME Conversion MIME Conversion CAPEC-43: Exploiting Multiple Input Interpretation Layers Exploiting Multiple Input Interpretation Layers CAPEC-45: Buffer Overflow via Symbolic Links Buffer Overflow via Symbolic Links CAPEC-46: Overflow Variables and Tags Overflow Variables and Tags CAPEC-47: Buffer Overflow via Parameter Expansion Buffer Overflow via Parameter Expansion CAPEC-51: Poison Web Service Registry Poison Web Service Registry CAPEC-52: Embedding NULL Bytes Embedding NULL Bytes CAPEC-53: Postfix, Null Terminate, and Backslash Postfix, Null Terminate, and Backslash CAPEC-64: Using Slashes and URL Encoding Combined to Bypass Validation Logic Using Slashes and URL Encoding Combined to Bypass Validation Logic CAPEC-67: String Format Overflow in syslog() String Format Overflow in syslog() CAPEC-71: Using Unicode Encoding to Bypass Validation Logic Using Unicode Encoding to Bypass Validation Logic CAPEC-72: URL Encoding URL Encoding CAPEC-76: Manipulating Web Input to File System Calls Manipulating Web Input to File System Calls CAPEC-78: Using Escaped Slashes in Alternate Encoding Using Escaped Slashes in Alternate Encoding CAPEC-79: Using Slashes in Alternate Encoding Using Slashes in Alternate Encoding CAPEC-80: Using UTF-8 Encoding to Bypass Validation Logic Using UTF-8 Encoding to Bypass Validation Logic CAPEC-83: XPath Injection XPath Injection CAPEC-84: XQuery Injection XQuery Injection CAPEC-101: Server Side Include (SSI) Injection Server Side Include (SSI) Injection CAPEC-105: HTTP Request Splitting HTTP Request Splitting CAPEC-108: Command Line Execution through SQL Injection Command Line Execution through SQL Injection CAPEC-120: Double Encoding Double Encoding CAPEC-135: Format String Injection Format String Injection CAPEC-250: XML Injection XML Injection CAPEC-267: Leverage Alternate Encoding Leverage Alternate Encoding CAPEC-273: HTTP Response Smuggling HTTP Response Smuggling

We scan GitHub repositories to detect new proof-of-concept exploits. Following list is a collection of public exploits and proof-of-concepts, which have been published on GitHub (sorted by the most recently updated).

amalpvatayam67/day08-CISCO-fmc-sim

This is a minimal, educational simulation that demonstrates the _impact_ class of a management-plane parsing RCE (inspired by CVE-2025-20265). It intentionally executes commands from crafted input for local learning only.

Dockerfile Shell Python

Updated: 4 days, 14 hours ago

0 stars 0 fork 0 watcher

Born at : Sept. 20, 2025, 10:15 a.m. This repo has been linked 1 different CVEs too.

saruman9/cve_2025_20265

PoC for CVE-2025-20265 Cisco Secure FMC Software RADIUS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

cisco cisco-fmc command-injection cve poc

Rust

Updated: 2 days, 5 hours ago

0 stars 0 fork 0 watcher

Born at : Sept. 16, 2025, 5:48 p.m. This repo has been linked 1 different CVEs too.

jordan922/cve2025-20265

Safe Python script to detect Cisco FMC instances potentially vulnerable to CVE-2025-20265. Uses official FMC API to check version, supports single/multi-target scanning, and includes a harmless local PoC marker.

Python

Updated: 1 month ago

2 stars 0 fork 0 watcher

Born at : Aug. 15, 2025, 6:35 a.m. This repo has been linked 1 different CVEs too.

nomi-sec/PoC-in-GitHub

📡 PoC auto collect from GitHub. ⚠️ Be careful Malware.

security cve exploit poc vulnerability

Updated: 18 hours, 16 minutes ago

7289 stars 1207 fork 1207 watcher

Born at : Dec. 8, 2019, 1:03 p.m. This repo has been linked 821 different CVEs too.

Results are limited to the first 15 repositories due to potential performance issues.

The following list is the news that have been mention CVE-2025-20265 vulnerability anywhere in the article.

TheCyberThrone

Cisco FMC and FTD Vulnerabilities

August 18, 2025CISCO FMC VulnerabilityCVE-2025-20265 (CVSS 10.0)Description: Remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the RADIUS authentication subsystem of FMC. Exploitable remotely and unauthent ...

Published Date: Aug 18, 2025 (1 month ago)

The Register

Cisco's Secure Firewall Management Center now not-so secure, springs a CVSS 10 RCE hole

Cisco has issued a patch for a maximum-severity bug in its Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) software that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to inject arbitrary shell commands on v ...