CVE-2021-1281: Cisco IOS XE

Medium severity, CVSS 6.7. EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

A vulnerability in CLI management in Cisco IOS XE SD-WAN Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to access the underlying operating system as the root user. This vulnerability is due to the way the software handles concurrent CLI sessions. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to the device as an administrative user and executing a sequence of commands. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to obtain access to the underlying operating system as the root user.

Affected products

• Cisco IOS XE: version 16.9.1 only; version 16.9.2 only; version 16.9.3 only; version 16.9.4 only; version 16.10.1 only; version 16.10.1a only; …

Published 2021-03-24. Last modified 2026-06-17.