CVE-2024-20481
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) contain a missing release of resource after effective lifetime vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) of the RAVPN service.
A vulnerability in the Remote Access VPN (RAVPN) service of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) of the RAVPN service. This vulnerability is due to resource exhaustion. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a large number of VPN authentication requests to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to exhaust resources, resulting in a DoS of the RAVPN service on the affected device. Depending on the impact of the attack, a reload of the device may be required to restore the RAVPN service. Services that are not related to VPN are not affected. Cisco Talos discussed these attacks in the blog post Large-scale brute-force activity targeting VPNs, SSH services with commonly used login credentials.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:LActively exploited. Patch immediately.
- Exploitation
- Confirmed in the wild (CISA KEV)
- Federal remediation deadline
- Overdue by 711 days
- CVSS
- 5.8 MEDIUM
- EPSS (30-day exploit probability)
- 15.9% · top 3% of all CVEs
- Weakness
- CWE-772
- Attack vector
- Network, remotely reachable
- Preconditions
- No privileges and no user interaction
- 1.Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
- 2.Treat as emergency change: patch or isolate internet-facing instances first.
- 3.Review exposure: confirm which instances are reachable from the internet and restrict access until patched.
- 4.Hunt for compromise: review logs for the disclosure window, not just from the patch date.
Assessment is derived automatically from the live signals above; verify against your own asset inventory.