Introduction
A single crafted link can turn trusted Cisco management portals into phishing launchpads, putting infrastructure credentials at risk. CVE-2025-20317 highlights how a subtle web application flaw in Cisco Integrated Management Controller (IMC) and Cisco UCS Manager can be leveraged for credential theft and redirection attacks against administrators and operators.
About Cisco IMC and UCS Manager: Cisco is a dominant force in enterprise networking and infrastructure management, with its IMC platform deployed globally for out-of-band server and appliance management. The Virtual Keyboard Video Monitor (vKVM) is a core feature for remote console access in both IMC and UCS Manager, making this vulnerability relevant to a wide range of enterprise and service provider environments.
Technical Information
CVE-2025-20317 is a classic open redirect vulnerability (CWE-601) in the vKVM connection handling of Cisco IMC and Cisco UCS Manager. The flaw is due to insufficient verification of user-supplied endpoint URLs. When a user interacts with the vKVM web interface, certain parameters control the destination of redirects after authentication or session events. The application fails to validate that these destinations are legitimate, allowing an attacker to craft a URL that causes the IMC or UCS Manager to redirect the user to an arbitrary external site.
Exploitation details:
- The attacker does not require authentication.
- The attacker crafts a URL pointing to the IMC or UCS Manager vKVM endpoint with a malicious redirect parameter.
- The attacker convinces a user (typically via phishing) to click the crafted link.
- Upon clicking, the user is redirected to an attacker-controlled site, which may be designed to mimic a legitimate login page or harvest credentials.
No public code snippets or endpoint parameter names have been disclosed. The root cause is improper input validation in the vKVM web interface, consistent with previous open redirect issues in Cisco products.
Affected Systems and Versions
- Cisco Integrated Management Controller (IMC) with vKVM functionality
- Cisco UCS Manager (vKVM client is included)
No specific version numbers or ranges are published in the advisory.
Vendor Security History
Cisco IMC and related management products have experienced similar web interface vulnerabilities in the past, including open redirect and input validation issues (2021 open redirect). In 2025, Cisco has reported several high and critical severity vulnerabilities across its management product lines, including privilege escalation and authentication bypasses. This pattern suggests recurring challenges in secure development and input validation for management interfaces.