CVE-2017-12261: Cisco Identity Services Engine

High severity, CVSS 7.8. EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

A vulnerability in the restricted shell of the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) that is accessible via SSH could allow an authenticated, local attacker to run arbitrary CLI commands with elevated privileges. The vulnerability is due to incomplete input validation of the user input for CLI commands issued at the restricted shell. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to the targeted device and executing commands that could lead to elevated privileges. An attacker would need valid user credentials to the device to exploit this vulnerability. The vulnerability affects the following Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) products running Release 1.4, 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.1.0: ISE, ISE Express, ISE Virtual Appliance. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCve74916.

Affected products

• Cisco Identity Services Engine: version 1.4 only; version 2.0 only; version 2.0.1 only; version 2.1.0 only
• Cisco Identity Services Engine Express: version 1.4 only; version 2.0 only; version 2.0.1 only; version 2.1.0 only
• Cisco Identity Services Engine Virtual Appliance: version 1.4 only; version 2.0 only; version 2.0.1 only; version 2.1.0 only

Published 2017-11-02. Last modified 2026-06-17.