Command Injection in Cisco NX-OS CLI
CVE-2024-20399 is a command-injection vulnerability in the CLI of Cisco NX-OS Software. It is caused by insufficient validation of arguments passed to specific configuration CLI commands. An authenticated attacker who already possesses Administrator credentials can supply crafted input to an affected configuration command and cause arbitrary commands to be executed on the device’s underlying operating system as root. Cisco noted that exploitation effectively allows escape from the NX-OS CLI into the underlying OS. The flaw has been observed in the wild, including use to deploy the VELVETSHELL backdoor on Cisco Nexus switches.
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Impact, mitigation & remediation
What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.
Impact
What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.
Mitigation
If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.
Remediation
Patch, then assume compromise.
Exploits
No valid public exploits. Mallory filtered out 1 candidate as fakes, detection scripts, or README-only repos.
All candidate exploits were filtered out by Mallory's validation.
Affected products & vendors
Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.
Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.
Recent activity
9 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
A Cisco NX-OS zero-day vulnerability that Velvet Ant exploited to deploy the VELVETSHELL backdoor on Cisco Nexus switches.
A Cisco NX-OS vulnerability used by Velvet Ant to plant a backdoor on switches after administrative access was already obtained, functioning as a persistence mechanism rather than an initial remote compromise vector.
A CLI command injection vulnerability in Cisco NX-OS switches.
A vulnerability in Cisco switches that allows an authenticated actor to escape the NX-OS command line interface and access the underlying operating system for arbitrary command execution.
The version that knows your environment.
Query your assets running an affected version, and investigate the blast radius.
Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.
Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.
Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.