Overview
CVE-2025-20156 identifies a critical vulnerability in the Cisco Meeting Management (CMM) application, affecting multiple versions from 2.9.0 through 3.9.0. The vulnerability lies in the REST API, which fails to enforce proper authorization controls, enabling low-privileged users to escalate their privileges to administrator.
Technical Details
This flaw is classified under CWE-274: Improper Handling of Insufficient Privileges. A remote, authenticated attacker with low-level access can send crafted API requests to a specific endpoint. Due to insufficient authorization enforcement, these requests are incorrectly processed, granting elevated access rights.
With administrator-level control, an attacker can take over edge nodes managed by Cisco Meeting Management, potentially compromising the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive communication systems.
CVSS Score and Severity
The vulnerability has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.9 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Attack Vector: Network
- Attack Complexity: Low
- Privileges Required: Low
- User Interaction: None
- Scope: Changed
- Impact: High on confidentiality, integrity, and availability
Impact
Successful exploitation of this vulnerability enables an attacker to:
- Gain full administrative privileges
- Control system configurations and user access
- Access or manipulate sensitive meeting data
- Potentially pivot to other internal systems managed through CMM
Given the high impact and network accessibility, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to enterprise environments relying on Cisco Meeting Management.
Mitigation
- Apply Cisco’s patches for all affected versions as outlined in their advisory.
- Review and restrict API access using network segmentation and access control lists (ACLs).
- Monitor logs for unusual REST API calls or privilege escalation attempts.