What is CVE-2026-20160?
Critical unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability (CVSS 9.8) in Cisco Smart Software Manager On-Prem (SSM On-Prem) caused by unintentional exposure of an internal service (CWE-668: Exposure of Resource to Wrong Sphere). An unauthenticated remote attacker can send a crafted request to the API of the exposed service to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system with root-level privileges. The attack is network-based with low complexity, requiring no privileges or user interaction. Disclosed by Cisco PSIRT on April 1, 2026 alongside CVE-2026-20093 as part of a critical Cisco security advisory batch. No workarounds are available; patching is the only remediation.
The record classifies CVE-2026-20160 under weakness class CWE-668. Its CVSS v3 base vector states that the flaw is reachable remotely over the network, needs no prior authentication, needs no user interaction, and has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability. 1 affected-product entry is recorded, across 1 vendor, listed below. The identifier was first published 187 days ago.
Severity and exploitation probability
- CVSS v3.1 base score
- 9.8 — CRITICAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H - EPSS (FIRST)
- 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 45.6% of all scored CVEs
- CISA KEV
- Not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
- Threadlinqs priority
- 6.7/10 — a Threadlinqs composite of the CVSS base score, the EPSS percentile and public exploit availability
- Published
- 2026-04-01, last modified 2026-04-08
Is CVE-2026-20160 being exploited?
It currently carries a trending score of 16 in the Threadlinqs vulnerability feed.
Affected products and versions
- Cisco: Smart Software Manager On-prem
How to fix CVE-2026-20160
The record marks a vendor fix as available for CVE-2026-20160. Vendor advisory: https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-ssm-cli-execution-cHUcWuNr. Apply the vendor fix referenced above to every affected product listed in this record, then confirm the running version against the vendor advisory.
Threat activity tracking CVE-2026-20160
No threat campaign in the Threadlinqs corpus currently references CVE-2026-20160, in its CVE list or as an indicator. The linkage is recomputed from the live corpus on every daily ingest, so this section fills in as soon as a tracked campaign cites the identifier.
Sources
Seeded from threat-derived and not yet processed by the Threadlinqs enrichment pipeline, so blank CVSS, EPSS or KEV fields above mean NOT MEASURED rather than measured-absent.