Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
This issue affects Cisco Nexus Dashboard and can let someone who already has local rescue-user access become root. The business risk is serious inside the appliance, but the entry requirement is narrow: the attacker must already authenticate locally with high privileges.
Executive priority
Treat this as a controlled but important infrastructure remediation. It is not an internet-scale emergency based on the provided evidence, but root compromise of Nexus Dashboard could materially affect network operations and trust in administrative tooling.
Technical view
CVE-2022-20906 is a Cisco Nexus Dashboard local privilege escalation issue tied to insufficient input validation during CLI command execution. An authenticated local attacker using rescue-user access could abuse vulnerable CLI handling to gain root. CVSS is 6.0, with high confidentiality and integrity impact and no availability impact listed.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely where Cisco Nexus Dashboard is deployed and rescue-user access is enabled, shared, weakly controlled, or available to administrators, support staff, or compromised local accounts. The provided sources do not identify specific affected versions.
Exploitation context
The source bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or other evidence of active exploitation. Exploitation requires authenticated local rescue-user access and malicious CLI input. This is not described as a remote unauthenticated vulnerability.
Researcher notes
Key limits are local attack vector and high privileges required. The bundle does not provide affected version ranges, fixed releases, workarounds, or exploit-in-the-wild evidence. Validate against Cisco’s advisory before making exposure claims.
Mitigation direction
- Review Cisco advisory for affected and fixed Nexus Dashboard releases.
- Upgrade or apply vendor guidance if your deployment is affected.
- Restrict rescue-user access to named, approved administrators only.
- Rotate and vault rescue-user credentials if exposure is uncertain.
- Monitor for unexpected rescue-user CLI activity and privilege changes.
Validation and detection
- Inventory all Cisco Nexus Dashboard deployments.
- Compare deployed versions against Cisco’s advisory guidance.
- Confirm who can authenticate as rescue-user locally.
- Review logs for rescue-user CLI activity and root-level changes.
- Verify remediation status in change records and asset inventory.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
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CWE-367: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupPrivilege behavior lookup
The CVE wording references privilege impact, so privilege escalation and authorization behavior review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2022-20906 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Medium
- CVSS
- 6 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N0.85.2Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
6MediumVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- 20220720 Cisco Nexus Dashboard Privilege Escalation VulnerabilitiesCVE reference · vendor-advisory, x_refsource_CISCO
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition
Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.