The vulnerabilities may lead to root access, command execution, bypasses, SQL injection, and remote code execution.  

The post Cisco Fixes Dozens of Flaws Across FMC, ISE and Nexus Dashboard appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Cisco disclosed its second actively exploited zero-day vulnerability in as many days, presenting its customers with back-to-back threats to address in unrelated products.

The latest zero-day — CVE-2026-76460 — has a maximum-severity rating and was exploited before Cisco disclosed and patched the vulnerability Wednesday. The defect in an API of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) allows a remote attacker to bypass authentication and gain full control of the affected device.

“ISE devices enforce network access policy, so root access on the appliance lets an attacker modify that policy, extract stored credentials, delete logs, and move laterally into every network segment ISE controls,” Landon Rice, senior exploit developer at VulnCheck, told CyberScoop.

Cisco did not say how many organizations have been compromised thus far, but reported it found the vulnerability during a technical support case. 

“Cisco is aware of active exploitation of this vulnerability. We strongly recommend customers upgrade to available fixed software and follow guidance in the advisory,” a Cisco spokesperson said in a statement.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency added the zero-day to its known exploited vulnerabilities catalog shortly after Cisco’s disclosure. 

Researchers haven’t attributed attacks involving CVE-2026-76460 to any known group or threat actor, but Rice noted Cisco ISE vulnerabilities are a recurring target. 

Multiple vulnerabilities affecting the Cisco product have been exploited since June 2025, including CVE-2025-20337 and CVE-2025-20281. The latest zero-day vulnerability and the pair of defects disclosed in the summer of 2025 were all rated critical with the highest rating of 10. 

Cisco didn’t say when the first instance of CVE-2026-76460 exploitation occurred, but the disclosure came just two days after the vendor disclosed CVE-2026-76461, an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability in Cisco Secure Email Gateway. 

While the two zero-days disclosed this week have consecutive CVE identifiers, there’s no indication they are connected or share any technical relationship, Rice said. “These are different products and different vulnerability classes with no relation,” he added.

A Cisco spokesperson concurred with that assessment. “CVEs are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis, so consecutive numbering reflects assignment order rather than any relationship between the issues. CVE-2026-76460 and CVE-2026-76461 affect different codebases,” the spokesperson added.

Cisco published indicators of compromise to help customers hunt for attempted exploitation in their environments, and said there are no workarounds for the vulnerability.

The post Cisco alerts customers to second actively exploited zero-day in as many days appeared first on CyberScoop.

Remote, unauthenticated attackers can exploit the vulnerability to bypass authentication via crafted requests.

The post Active Exploitation Triggers Emergency Patch for Cisco ISE Zero-Day appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Attackers of unknown origins and motivations are exploiting a critical zero-day vulnerability in Cisco Secure Email Gateway, authorities and researchers said Monday.

The vulnerability — CVE-2026-76461 —  was exploited before Cisco disclosed and patched the defect Monday and allows unauthenticated, remote attackers to execute commands with root privileges on vulnerable systems. “In practical terms, that gives the attacker control of the gateway itself,” Douglas McKee, director of vulnerability intelligence at Rapid7, told CyberScoop.

Cisco said its product security incident response team became aware of active exploitation of the defect affecting Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Secure Email Gateway in September. When asked for further details, a company spokesperson pointed to the advisory and reiterated that the company is aware of active exploitation of the vulnerability.

The company did not say how many organizations are impacted by active exploitation thus far, but it indicated multiple customers were likely compromised prior to disclosure. 

“Cisco has conducted a thorough threat intelligence investigation on devices that belong to Cisco Secure Email Cloud. Cisco has directly contacted customers who own Cisco Secure Email Cloud devices where indicators of possible compromise were identified,” the company wrote in its security advisory. “Cisco is engaged in remediation and recovery operations. Cisco has already deployed mitigations that are within Cisco’s management.”

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency added the zero-day, which affects cloud-based and on-premises instances of Cisco Secure Email Gateway, to its known exploited vulnerabilities catalog shortly after Cisco’s disclosure. 

The tight timeline between Cisco’s public advisory and patch guidance, and CISA’s quick addition to the KEV catalog indicates the vulnerability deserves immediate attention, McKee said. 

“The combination here is pretty ugly. No authentication is required, an attacker can reach the vulnerable code by sending an email through the appliance, successful exploitation can result in root-level command execution, and Cisco has observed exploitation in the wild,” he added.

Researchers at Rapid7 and VulnCheck said they don’t yet know how many organizations are impacted by active exploits, but they encouraged Cisco customers to patch and hunt for potential signs of compromise as soon as possible. 

Spencer McIntyre, director of exploit development at VulnCheck, told CyberScoop the exploit could allow an attacker to maintain access to the email gateway and monitor communications. “Stealing or silently snooping on email comms is a common tactic for state-sponsored and other threat actors conducting espionage operations,” he said. 

“It’s going to be worse for organizations that have the appliance deployed on-premises. In this case, the attacker could pivot internally,” McIntyre added. “If, however, organizations use a cloud instance, the compromised gateway is less likely to have significant access to internal organizational resources.”

Cisco released indicators of compromise to help customers hunt for attempted exploitation in their environments, but the company added that attackers could remove or hide those traces with the level of access granted via exploitation.

The post Cisco warns customers of actively exploited zero-day in email gateways appeared first on CyberScoop.

An unauthenticated attacker can exploit CVE-2026-76461 to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying OS with root privileges.

The post Root RCE Zero-Day in Cisco Secure Email Gateway Under Active Exploitation appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Cisco and CISA have flagged exploitation of CVE-2026-20079, a vulnerability disclosed in March 2026.

The post Organizations Warned of Cisco Secure FMC Exploitation appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Publicly disclosed S/MIME flaws could expose encrypted email content, while critical IOS XR and Nexus bugs could enable remote code execution and authentication bypass.

The post Cisco Warns of Unpatched Secure Email Flaws, Patches Critical Switch Vulnerabilities appeared first on SecurityWeek.

The flaws could lead to remote code execution, authentication bypasses, and path traversal attacks.

The post Cisco Patches Critical Crosswork, Secure Workload Vulnerabilities appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Russian state-sponsored hackers are breaking into critical infrastructure around the world by exploiting poorly configured and vulnerable networking devices, authorities from the United States and 12 additional countries said in a joint cybersecurity advisory Monday.

Officials once again urged defenders to take more preventative measures to thwart attacks from the Russian Federal Security Service Center 16, which has been actively targeting critical infrastructure for more than a decade. The hackers are also tracked as Berserk Bear, Energetic Bear, Crouching Yeti, Dragonfly, Ghost Blizzard and Static Tundra.

“This is an ongoing issue that has impacted various U.S. and foreign networks across multiple sectors, including the defense industrial base, communications, energy, financial services, government facilities and health care sectors,” the National Security Agency said in a statement.

The state-sponsored attackers scan the internet for vulnerable routers using default or weak passwords, and have also exploited vulnerabilities in Cisco devices, Cisco’s Smart Install feature and web portals to take over network devices. 

Two of the Cisco vulnerabilities exploited by the Russian FSB Center 16 hackers are quite old, including CVE-2008-4128 and CVE-2018-0171. 

Officials shared technical details of the threat group’s activities and advised network defenders to disable Cisco Smart Install on all devices, use stronger modes of authentication and passwords, monitor for unusual credentials and logins using local accounts. 

The joint advisory comes nearly a year after the FBI issued a similar alert about the same group targeting end-of-life networking devices running Cisco Smart Install. 

On Monday, the European Union blamed Russia’s FSB Center 16 for a December 2025 attack on Poland’s energy grid. The United Kingdom, also on Monday, sanctioned 24 individuals and entities allegedly involved in various attacks attributed to Russian intelligence services.

“From directing criminals to targeting businesses, and striking Poland’s energy grid in the depths of winter, the Russian state is sinking to new lows in its attempts to undermine European security,” Yvette Cooper, foreign security of the United Kingdom, said in a statement. 

Other countries behind the joint cybersecurity advisory include: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Poland and Sweden.

The post Officials once again warn defenders that Russian hackers are targeting network devices appeared first on CyberScoop.

Want to learn how attackers bypass endpoint products? Slides for this webcast can be found here: https://www.blackhillsinfosec.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/SLIDES_SacredCashCowTipping2020.pdf 3:41 – Alternate Interpreters 9:19 – Carbon Black Config Issue 15:07 – Cisco […]

The post Webcast: Sacred Cash Cow Tipping 2020 appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Jordan Drysdale// tl;dr Both Cisco and Nessus have escalated the Smart Install Client Service feature/vulnerability. Nessus is now reporting the Smart Install RCE as critical. High five!!! Cisco has also […]

The post Cisco Smart Install Escalation and Update! appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Jordan Drysdale // tl;dr Cisco Smart Install is awesome (on by default)…for hackers… not sysadmins. So, you Nessus too? Criticals and highs are all that matter! Right??? Until this beauty […]

The post Cisco Smart Installs and Why They’re Not “Informational” appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Ethan Robish // In this series of posts, I’ll discuss how I segmented my home network using VLANs and how I moved away from using a risky consumer-grade router at […]

The post Home Network Design – Part 1 appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Editor’s Note: We’ll feature Lawrence’s List every week.  It will include interesting things he’s come across during the week as he’s an avid consumer of internet garbage and follows a […]

The post Lawrence’s List 061316 appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..