CVE-2024-20265: Cisco Aironet Access Point Software

Medium severity, CVSS 5.9. EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

A vulnerability in the boot process of Cisco Access Point (AP) Software could allow an unauthenticated, physical attacker to bypass the Cisco Secure Boot functionality and load a software image that has been tampered with on an affected device. This vulnerability exists because unnecessary commands are available during boot time at the physical console. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by interrupting the boot process and executing specific commands to bypass the Cisco Secure Boot validation checks and load an image that has been tampered with. This image would have been previously downloaded onto the targeted device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to load the image once. The Cisco Secure Boot functionality is not permanently compromised.

Affected products

• Cisco Aironet Access Point Software: from 8.2.100.0, up to and including 8.10.185.0; from 16.10.1, up to and including 17.11.1
• Cisco Business Wireless Access Point Software: from 10.0.1.0, up to and including 10.8.1.0
• Cisco Cisco Aironet Access Point Software: version 8.2.100.0 only; version 8.2.130.0 only; version 8.2.111.0 only; version 8.2.110.0 only; version 8.2.121.0 only; version 8.2.141.0 only; …
• Cisco Cisco Aironet Access Point Software IOS XE Controller: version 16.10.1e only; version 16.10.1 only; version 17.1.1t only; version 17.1.1s only; version 17.1.1 only; version 16.11.1a only; …
• Cisco Cisco Business Wireless Access Point Software: version 10.0.1.0 only; version 10.0.2.0 only; version 10.1.1.0 only; version 10.1.2.0 only; version 10.2.1.0 only; version 10.2.2.0 only; …
• Cisco Cisco IOS XE Software: affected versions not specified

Published 2024-03-27. Last modified 2026-06-17.