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CVE-2023-20269

is CVE-2023-20269real, exploitable, or a false positive? Here's the community ground truth.

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Medium · CVSS 5EPSS 21.6%CISA KEVCWE-288

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:N

A vulnerability in the remote access VPN feature of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to conduct a brute force attack in an attempt to identify valid username and password combinations or an authenticated, remote attacker to establish a clientless SSL VPN session with an unauthorized user. This vulnerability is due to improper separation of authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) between the remote access VPN feature and the HTTPS management and site-to-site VPN features. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by specifying a default connection profile/tunnel group while conducting a brute force attack or while establishing a clientless SSL VPN session using valid credentials. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to achieve one or both of the following: Identify valid credentials that could then be used to establish an unauthorized remote access VPN session. Establish a clientless SSL VPN session (only when running Cisco ASA Software Release 9.16 or earlier). Notes: Establishing a client-based remote access VPN tunnel is not possible as these default connection profiles/tunnel groups do not and cannot have an IP address pool configured. This vulnerability does not allow an attacker to bypass authentication. To successfully establish a remote access VPN session, valid credentials are required, including a valid second factor if multi-factor authentication (MFA) is configured. Cisco will release software updates that address this vulnerability. There are workarounds that address this vulnerability.

References

NVD MITRE CVE.org CISA KEV

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Community ground truth

Community verdict

3 verdicts
Not a real issue

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Community real-world severity: Critical (Critical 3) — CVSS base score 5

Practitioners rate this higher than its CVSS — treat with extra caution.

Field notes & remediation

Verdicts are the quick signal — notes are the evidence and fixes behind them.

  • 0
    Field note · Lin WeiCurated

    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance and Firepower Threat Defense Unauthorized Access Vulnerability — Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance and Firepower Threat Defense contain an unauthorized access vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to conduct a brute force attack in an attempt to identify valid username and password combinations or establish a clientless SSL VPN session with an unauthorized user. Listed in the CISA KEV catalog (added 2023-09-13) — confirmed exploited in the wild, not theoretical. It is linked to known ransomware campaigns. FIRST EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at ~22%. Treat it as real and prioritize remediation over triage.

  • 0
    Remediation · Nadia PetrovaCurated

    Required action for Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance and Firepower Threat Defense: Apply mitigations per vendor instructions for group-lock and vpn-simultaneous-logins or discontinue use of the product for unsupported devices. CISA set a federal remediation due date of 2023-10-04. After patching, verify the vulnerable path is no longer reachable before closing the finding.

Related CVEs

Same weakness — CWE-288.