CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-20065 — Cisco Ios Xe security vulnerability

High CVSS 7.8

A vulnerability in the Cisco IOx application hosting subsystem of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to elevate privileges to root on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to insufficient restrictions on the hosted application. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by logging in to and then escaping the Cisco IOx application container. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system with root privileges.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.8 (3.1)
Published
2023-03-23
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
operating-system
Weaknesses
CWE-284

Affected products

  • cisco / ios_xe / 17.6.3
  • cisco / ios_xe / 17.11.1

Matched remediation archetype

Authorization bypass, IDOR, and cross-tenant access

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map object and action authorization checks across API, UI, batch, import/export, and background-job paths.
  • Identify tenant, ownership, role, and policy boundaries for affected resources and administrative operations.
  • Use synthetic fixtures to compare intended access matrices without accessing another user's real data.

Remediate safely

  • Enforce server-side authorization at each resource access and state transition using the authenticated principal and trusted tenant context.
  • Scope data queries by tenant and ownership; treat client-supplied identifiers, roles, and policy claims as untrusted.
  • Add deny-by-default policy tests for horizontal and vertical access across every affected transport.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.