CVE-2021-1488: Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software

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

A vulnerability in the upgrade process of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to inject commands that could be executed with root privileges on the underlying operating system (OS). This vulnerability is due to insufficient input validation. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by uploading a crafted upgrade package file to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to inject commands that could be executed with root privileges on the underlying OS.

Affected products

• Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software: from 9.13, before 9.13.1.21 (fixed in 9.13.1.21); from 9.14, before 9.14.2.13 (fixed in 9.14.2.13); from 9.15, before 9.15.1.10 (fixed in 9.15.1.10)
• Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense: from 6.5.0, before 6.6.4 (fixed in 6.6.4); from 6.7.0, before 6.7.0.2 (fixed in 6.7.0.2)

Published 2021-04-29. Last modified 2026-08-11.