⚠ Reference material — not professional advice. Test in staging, back up first, verify against your specific version. Use your own judgment for your environment.
● Medium · CVSS 6.6 ⚠ ACTIVELY EXPLOITED — CISA KEV

How to Fix CVE-2023-20109: Command Injection in IOS

Other vulnerabilities in the same area that are worth patching alongside this one:

*By Sai Kiran Pandrala*

⚡ At a glance
SeverityCVSS 6.6 - Medium
Actively exploited?Yes, listed in CISA KEV (added 2023-10-10)
Affected12.4(24)T, 12.4(24)T3, 12.4(22)T1, 12.4(24)T5, 12.4(24)T4, 12.4(22)T, and others
Fixed inSee vendor advisory
Type (CWE)CWE-787: Out-of-bounds Write
Patch immediately. CISA's KEV listing means active exploitation is confirmed. Federal agencies must remediate by 2023-10-31.

What is CVE-2023-20109?

CVE-2023-20109 is an OS command injection bug in IOS. The product builds a shell command from untrusted input without escaping, so injected metacharacters run as the service account, often root or SYSTEM. Vendor description: A vulnerability in the Cisco Group Encrypted Transport VPN (GET VPN) feature of Cisco IOS Software and Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, remote attacker who has administrative control of either a group member or a key server to execute arbitrary code on an affected device or cause the device to crash. This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of attributes in the Group Domain of Interpretation (GDOI) and G-IKEv2 protocols of the GET VPN feature.

Why this CVE matters

Command injection in a network appliance or management console gives the attacker the same privileges as the service account, which is usually root or SYSTEM. From there, persistence, lateral movement, and credential theft follow with off-the-shelf tooling.

For deployments of IOS that have been exposed to the public internet during the disclosure window, the operating assumption should be that scanning has already happened. Confirmed in-the-wild exploitation makes that assumption mandatory, not cautious. Patching closes the door; log review and credential rotation close out the rest of the response.

Am I affected?

You are affected if your installation matches any of these version ranges:

Check your installed version against the list above. If you cannot determine the version, treat the system as affected and follow the upgrade path below.

On Cisco IOS / IOS XE systems, run show version to read the running image and compare against the affected ranges. For ASA / FTD, use show version from privileged EXEC mode.

How to fix CVE-2023-20109

  1. Read the vendor advisory in full: https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-getvpn-rce-g8qR68sx
  2. Upgrade IOS to the patched build listed in the vendor advisory.
  3. Back up the configuration (and database, where applicable) before upgrading.
  4. Rotate any credentials, API keys, or session tokens that the vulnerable service touched. An unauthenticated RCE-class flaw means anything the process could see should be treated as exposed.
  5. Apply the patch in a maintenance window. For HA pairs, upgrade the standby node first, fail over, then upgrade the former primary.
  6. Restart the affected service so the patched binary loads, then verify the new version (see verification section).

Apply the iOS / iPadOS update


# Check the current iOS build on a tethered device (libimobiledevice)
ideviceinfo -k ProductVersion
ideviceinfo -k BuildVersion

# Required iOS / iPadOS build is listed in the vendor advisory: https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-getvpn-rce-g8qR68sx
# On-device: Settings -> General -> Software Update -> Download and Install


# Vendor advisory: https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-getvpn-rce-g8qR68sx
# Confirm fleet iOS devices have updated (Intune example)
Connect-MgGraph -Scopes Device.Read.All
Get-MgDeviceManagementManagedDevice -Filter "operatingSystem eq 'iOS'" |
  Where-Object { $_.OSVersion -lt "<fixed-version-from-advisory>" } |
  Select-Object DeviceName, OSVersion, UserPrincipalName

Verify the fix landed


# 1. Confirm the running version matches the fixed-in version from the advisory:
#    https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-getvpn-rce-g8qR68sx
#    Use the platform-specific version probe above.

# 2. Re-scan with your vulnerability scanner (Nessus, Qualys, Tenable, OpenVAS).
#    The scanner should no longer flag CVE-2023-20109 on the patched target.

# 3. Inspect recent service / kernel logs for crash loops or rollback events.
journalctl -u <service> --since "10 minutes ago"
dmesg --since "10 minutes ago"

If you cannot patch immediately

Restrict access to the management or affected endpoint at the network layer. If the vendor lists a configuration toggle that disables the vulnerable feature, use it until you can patch.

How to verify the fix worked

If your installation was internet-reachable during the disclosure window, treat log review as part of the remediation rather than an optional follow-up. Look for unexpected administrator accounts in IOS, scheduled tasks or cron jobs you did not create, new files in web-accessible directories, and outbound connections to addresses not in your baseline. Suspicious requests to the vulnerable endpoint immediately followed by successful 200-class responses with unusually large bodies are a strong indicator of exploitation. Because IOS sits on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog for this CVE, defenders should also pull the IOC list from the vendor advisory and from CISA's analysis if one was published.

Frequently asked questions

Is CVE-2023-20109 being exploited in the wild?

Yes. CISA added CVE-2023-20109 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, which means active exploitation has been confirmed by federal observation or credible vendor reporting.

Will a WAF or IDS rule fully mitigate CVE-2023-20109?

No. Network-layer filters can reduce noise and slow opportunistic scanners, but they will not stop a determined attacker. The vendor patch is the only durable fix.

Do I need to assume compromise if my IOS was internet-facing and unpatched?

For an unauthenticated RCE-class flaw exposed to the public internet during the known exploitation window, yes. Review logs, rotate credentials the process could access, and look for unexpected accounts, scheduled tasks, or outbound connections.

References

*This guide was assembled from the official vendor advisory, the NVD record, and the CISA KEV catalog entry on 2026-05-25. Always confirm against the vendor advisory before applying changes in production.*