Cisco has released an urgent security patch to its Emergency Responder product that fixes a critical vulnerability that could be exploited by unauthenticated threat actors to gain access to vulnerable systems. Cisco Emergency Responder enhances the existing emergency 9-1-1 functionality offered by the Cisco Unified Communications Manager product. It ensures that Cisco Unified Communications Manager sends emergency 9-1-1 calls to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). It ensures that the PSAP can correctly identify the caller’s location and return the call if necessary. The system also tracks and updates changes to equipment, allowing service providers to ensure effective compliance with legal or regulatory obligations, reducing the risk of liability related to emergency calls. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-20101, stems from the default presence of static user credentials for the root account, which cannot be changed or deleted. If exploited, a threat actor could log in to an affected device using the root account, which would allow them to execute arbitrary commands as the root user. Cisco discovered the vulnerability during their internal security testing operations. This is a severe vulnerability, receiving a CVSS score of 9.8/10; however, there is currently no indication that the flaw is being actively exploited in-the-wild. CTIX analysts recommend that all Cisco Emergency Responder administrators ensure that they update their systems if they are still vulnerable.