Actively exploited in the wild
Cisco ASA and FTD Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
Cisco - Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) · Listed in the CISA KEV since 2024-04-24. This indicates confirmed attacks in production environments.
Required action: Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
CVE-2024-20359
MediumCVSS 6.0KEVExploitation Probability (EPSS)
Very high risk97th percentile - higher than 97% of all known CVEs
Summary
A vulnerability in a legacy capability for preloading VPN clients and plug-ins in Cisco ASA and FTD Software allows an authenticated, local attacker with administrator privileges to execute arbitrary code with root-level privileges. The issue is due to improper validation of a file read from system flash memory. A successful exploit could allow code execution after the next reload, potentially altering system behavior.
Risk Assessment
Risk of persistent device compromise, as injected code can survive reboots, potentially leading to full compromise.
Recommendation
Apply Cisco updates and restrict administrative access to devices to trusted personnel only.
Original NVD description (English source)
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.