Root Access for All: Critical Auth Bypass Hits Cisco Firewall Management Center

A critical vulnerability (CVE-2026-20079, CVSS 10.0) was disclosed in the web-based management interface of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (on‑prem virtual and physical appliances) that allows remote unauthenticated attackers to obtain root access by sending crafted HTTP requests; Cisco has released patches (no workaround) and recommends using the Software Checker and restricting management access while updating.