Cisco Methods has issued a essential safety advisory for a newly disclosed command injection vulnerability affecting its Nexus 3000 and 9000 Collection Switches working in standalone NX-OS mode.
Tracked as CVE-2025-20161 (CVSSv3 rating: 5.1), the flaw permits authenticated attackers with administrative privileges to execute arbitrary working system instructions with root-level permissions throughout software program improve procedures.
The vulnerability, found internally by Cisco’s safety groups, stems from insufficient validation mechanisms for particular software program picture elements, permitting malicious actors to embed unauthorized instructions into tampered firmware packages.
Technical Breakdown and Exploit Dynamics
The vulnerability exists within the picture verification subsystem of Cisco NX-OS variations earlier than 15.2(9)E1 for Nexus 3000 switches and 10.4(3a)F for Nexus 9000 gadgets.
Attackers exploiting this flaw should first acquire legitimate administrator credentials and bodily/logical entry to the focused swap’s administration interface.
By distributing a specifically crafted software program picture containing hidden command sequences—disguised inside metadata fields or checksum blocks—an attacker can bypass signature validation checks and set off the execution of malicious payloads in the course of the firmware set up course of.
Whereas the assault complexity stays comparatively excessive because of the prerequisite administrative entry, profitable exploitation grants full management over the swap’s Linux-based underpinnings.
This might facilitate community reconnaissance, site visitors interception, lateral motion, or persistent backdoor deployments throughout linked infrastructure.
Cisco’s advisory emphasizes that attackers may leverage this flaw to govern routing tables, intercept encrypted site visitors flows, or disrupt community segmentation insurance policies with out triggering normal intrusion detection mechanisms.
Affected Merchandise and Mitigation Methods
The confirmed impacted gadgets embody:
- Nexus 3000 Collection Switches (all fashions working standalone NX-OS)
- Nexus 9000 Collection Switches (standalone NX-OS deployments solely)
Cisco explicitly excludes Nexus 9000 switches working in Software-Centric Infrastructure (ACI) mode, MDS 9000 storage switches, and your entire Firepower equipment lineup from this vulnerability.
Organizations using Nexus 5500/5600/6000/7000 {hardware} or UCS material interconnects stay unaffected.
As no viable workarounds exist, Cisco mandates the instant set up of patched firmware variations:
- Nexus 3000 Collection: Improve to NX-OS 15.2(9)E1 or newer
- Nexus 9000 Collection: Migrate to NX-OS 10.4(3a)F or subsequent releases
Community directors should make the most of the Cisco Software program Checker portal to confirm their gadget’s vulnerability standing and obtain cryptographically signed software program bundles.
The corporate additional advises enterprises to implement strict firmware provenance controls—together with multi-party SHA-256 hash verification earlier than deploying updates—and limit administrative entry to change administration interfaces utilizing role-based entry controls (RBAC).
Cisco’s Product Safety Incident Response Group (PSIRT) confirms no lively exploitation incidents have been noticed however urges accelerated patch deployment cycles.
For organizations unable to instantly improve, community segmentation and steady monitoring for sudden configuration adjustments or unauthorized CLI command exercise stay important compensatory controls.
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