Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager: information disclosure flaw under attack

What is affected

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager is mostly run by companies, schools and public bodies, not on home computers. You are unlikely to have it yourself, but organisations that hold your data may. Breaches that start with flaws like this one are how personal data ends up leaked.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager contains an exposure of sensitive information to an unauthorized actor vulnerability that could allow remote attackers to view sensitive information on affected systems.

What an attacker can do

This is a information disclosure flaw. It lets an attacker read data they are not supposed to see, such as memory contents, credentials or internal files. It is often the first step of a larger attack.

How it is reached

Over the internet or network

Access the attacker needs

No account needed

Does the victim have to do something?

No, works without the victim doing anything

What to do

1. At home: nothing to install. Keep your own devices updated and use a different password for every service, so that a breach at one organisation does not open your other accounts.
2. If you administer Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager at work: apply the vendor's fix or mitigation now and review logs for signs of compromise, because the flaw was being exploited before it was listed.
3. If the product is past its support date and no fix exists, take it off the internet or retire it.

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.

Vendor advisories and fixes

• sec.cloudapps.cisco.comsec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-sdwan-authb

How urgent is it

CISA added this vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue on April 20, 2026, which means there is reliable evidence of attacks in the wild. US federal agencies must fix it by April 23, 2026, a deadline that has already passed. That deadline does not bind anyone else, but it shows how seriously the agency rates it.

The EPSS model estimates a 32% probability that this flaw will be exploited somewhere in the next 30 days. That is higher than 98% of all scored vulnerabilities.

Its CVSS severity score is 7.5 out of 10 (high), as recorded in the US National Vulnerability Database.

Technical description

A vulnerability in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to view sensitive information on an affected system. This vulnerability is due to insufficient file system restrictions. An authenticated attacker with netadmin privileges could exploit this vulnerability by accessing the vshell of an affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to read sensitive information on the underlying operating system.