A vulnerability in the lockdown mechanism of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to perform arbitrary commands as root . This vulnerability is due to insufficient restrictions on remediation modules while in lockdown mode. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted input to the system CLI of the affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to run arbitrary commands or code as root , even when the system is in lockdown mode. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have valid administrative credentials. Cisco has released software updates that address this vulnerability. There are no workarounds that address this vulnerability. This advisory is available at the following link: https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-fmc-cmd-inject-S9ZM4EJf This advisory is part of the March 2026 release of the Cisco Secure Firewall ASA, Secure FMC, and Secure FTD Software Security Advisory Bundled Publication. For a complete list of the advisories and links to them, see Cisco Event Response: March 2026 Semiannual Cisco Secure Firewall ASA, Secure FMC, and Secure FTD Software Security Advisory Bundled Publication . <br/>Security Impact Rating: Medium <br/>CVE: CVE-2026-20044
An authenticated local attacker with administrative credentials can exploit a command injection vulnerability (CVE-2026-20044) in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) software to execute arbitrary commands as root, even when the system is in lockdown mode, by sending crafted input to the CLI. Cisco has released software updates to address this vulnerability, and there are no available workarounds.