A vulnerability in the persistent Telnet/Secure Shell (SSH) CLI of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to gain shell access on an affected device and execute commands on the underlying operating system (OS) with root privileges. The vulnerability is due to insufficient enforcement of the consent token in authorizing shell access. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to the persistent Telnet/SSH CLI on an affected device and requesting shell access. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to gain shell access on the affected device and execute commands on the underlying OS with root privileges.