CVE-2025-20181A vulnerability in Cisco IOS Software for Cisco Catalyst 2960X, 2960XR, 2960CX, and 3560CX Series Switches could allow an authenticated,…
- 6.8MediumCVSS base score
- 0.20%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 90% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
A vulnerability in Cisco IOS Software for Cisco Catalyst 2960X, 2960XR, 2960CX, and 3560CX Series Switches could allow an authenticated, local attacker with privilege level 15 or an unauthenticated attacker with physical access to the device to execute persistent code at boot time and break the chain of trust. This vulnerability is due to missing signature verification for specific files that may be loaded during the device boot process. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by placing a crafted file into a specific location on an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code at boot time. Because this allows the attacker to bypass a major security feature of the device, Cisco has raised the Security Impact Rating (SIR) of this advisory from Medium to High.
Timeline
ID reserved
By cisco
- 7 months later
· 7 months later
Published
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| ciscoCNA (assigner) | 3.0 | Medium6.8 | CVSS:3.0/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Analyzed | 3.0 | Medium6.8 | CVSS:3.0/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.20% · top 90% of all CVEs (15 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 6.8.
Affected products
- affected 15.0(1)XO1
- affected 15.0(1)XO
- affected 15.0(2)XO
- affected 15.0(1)EY
- affected 15.0(1)EY1
- affected 15.0(1)EY2
- affected 15.0(2)SE8
- affected 15.0(1)EX
- affected 15.0(2)EX
- affected 15.0(2)EX1
- affected 15.0(2)EX2
- affected 15.0(2)EX3
- affected 15.0(2)EX4
- affected 15.0(2)EX5
- affected 15.0(2)EX8
- affected 15.0(2a)EX5
- affected 15.0(2)EX10
- affected 15.0(2)EX11
- affected 15.0(2)EX13
- affected 15.0(2)EX12
- affected 15.2(2)E
- affected 15.2(3)E
- affected 15.2(2)E1
- affected 15.2(4)E
- affected 15.2(3)E1
- affected 15.2(2)E2
- affected 15.2(2a)E1
- affected 15.2(2)E3
- affected 15.2(2a)E2
- affected 15.2(3)E2
- affected 15.2(3a)E
- affected 15.2(3)E3
- affected 15.2(4)E1
- affected 15.2(2)E4
- affected 15.2(2)E5
- affected 15.2(4)E2
- affected 15.2(3)E4
- affected 15.2(5)E
- affected 15.2(4)E3
- affected 15.2(2)E6
- and 66 more
What to do
Exploitation: The Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) is not aware of any public announcements or malicious use of the vulnerability that is described in this advisory.
References
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2025-13903 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2025-20181)Record last updated .