Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Patched for Hardcoded Credential Vulnerability CVE-2026-20316 Already Exploited in the Wild
Cisco Systems has confirmed and fixed a new vulnerability in its Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) firewall management product. The company disclosed the issue in a security advisory published on July 29, 2026, noting that the flaw had already been exploited in zero-day attacks.
The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2026-20316, stems from hardcoded credentials in the web interface. Attackers with remote access can authenticate and retrieve sensitive information. Although the CVSS v3.1 base score is 5.3, Cisco assigned a High severity rating because the flaw can be combined with other vulnerabilities to achieve privilege escalation.
Exploitation activity was first observed in July 2026. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added the vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog on the same day and instructed federal agencies to remediate by August 1, 2026.
Cisco emphasized that the static credentials provide low-privileged access that could serve as a stepping stone for more impactful attacks when chained with additional flaws. Customers are strongly advised to apply the available patches and review their FMC deployments for signs of compromise.
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