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CVE-2025-20206

Target: Cisco Secure Client - Secure Firewall Posture Engine

Cisco CVSS 7.1 Updated March 10, 2026
Threat Level HIGH

Executive Risk Summary

"A vulnerability in the interprocess communication channel of Cisco Secure Client for Windows could allow an authenticated, local attacker to perform a DLL hijacking attack, potentially executing arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges. The attacker must have valid user credentials on the Windows system to exploit this vulnerability."

Operational Audit Arsenal

Target Type Software
Target Asset Cisco Secure Client
Standard Path Windows
PowerShell
# 🛠️ Senior Engineer Universal Audit
# Target: Cisco Secure Client (Software)
$Target = "Cisco Secure Client"
$SearchPaths = @("$env:windir\System32", "$env:ProgramFiles", "${env:ProgramFiles(x86)}")

Get-ChildItem -Path $SearchPaths -Filter $Target -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | 
Select-Object FullName, @{Name="Version";Expression={$_.VersionInfo.ProductVersion}}

Patch Impact Forecast

Reboot Required Unknown
Service Disruption

Potential disruption to system functionality

Internal Work Notes

Recommendation: Apply the latest security patch from Cisco to mitigate the DLL hijacking vulnerability in Cisco Secure Client for Windows.

Intelligence Sources

Scope of Impact

Windows Secure Client

Original NVD Description

"A vulnerability in the interprocess communication (IPC) channel of Cisco Secure Client for Windows could allow an authenticated, local attacker to perform a DLL hijacking attack on an affected device if the Secure Firewall Posture Engine, formerly HostScan, is installed on Cisco Secure Client. This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of resources that are loaded by the application at run time. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted IPC message to a specific Cisco Secure Client process. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected machine with SYSTEM privileges. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have valid user credentials on the Windows system."

Data compiled from NVD, MSRC, and CISA KEV Catalog. Intelligence synthesized via AI. Scripts provided for diagnostic purposes under MIT License.