Cisco ASA and FTD Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
A vulnerability in a legacy capability that allowed for the preloading of VPN clients and plug-ins and that has been available in Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could…
Severity = CVSS. Probability = EPSS (FIRST). Exploitation = public signals: KEV, EUVD, ransomware, EPSS above 10 %, no account required.
Exploitation probability EPSS · FIRST
Exploitation signals 3 / 5
- KEV catalog (CISA)24 Apr 2024
- Exploited in EUVD (ENISA)24 Apr 2024
- Used by ransomwareno
- EPSS above 10 %18.8%
- No account, over the networkno
What to do
Fix
Apply the vendor’s fix as soon as it is available.
CISA guidance: Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
Meanwhile
Take the service off the internet or restrict access to it, watch the logs and look for signs of compromise.
Manufacturers (CRA)
Exploited vulnerability in your product: early warning to ENISA within 24 h, then notification within 72 h (Article 14 of the Cyber Resilience Act). The CRA explained
Description ENISA EUVD
A vulnerability in a legacy capability that allowed for the preloading of VPN clients and plug-ins and that has been available in Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to execute arbitrary code with root-level privileges. Administrator-level privileges are required to exploit this vulnerability. This vulnerability is due to improper validation of a file when it is read from system flash memory. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by copying a crafted file to the disk0: file system of an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected device after the next reload of the device, which could alter system behavior. Because the injected code could persist across device reboots, Cisco has raised the Security Impact Rating (SIR) of this advisory from Medium to High.
Affected products
- 9.12.3.7
- 9.8.2.35
- 6.4.0.8
- 7.2.3
- 9.15.1.17
- 7.2.1
- 9.8.3.14
- 9.12.2
- 9.12.4.35
- 9.12.4.48
- 6.7.0.3
- 9.8.4.3
Open source packages OSV
Affected libraries according to OSV, with fixed versions.
Timeline
-
Published
-
Exploitation reported (ENISA)
-
Added to the KEV catalog
-
CISA remediation due date
-
EPSS peak: 19.4%
References
Other exploited vulnerabilities from the same vendor
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- CVE-2026-76504Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager Hex Encoding Vulnerability7.5 · Actively exploited
- CVE-2026-76460Cisco Identity Services Engine Incorrect Use of Privileged APIs Vulnerability8.7 · Actively exploited
- CVE-2026-76461Cisco Secure Email Gateway SQL Injection Vulnerability7.2 · Actively exploited
- CVE-2026-20079Cisco Firewall Management Center Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel Vulnerability9.1 · Actively exploited