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Threats / Cisco / CVE-2024-20353
CVE-2024-20353 · EUVD no mirror located · GCVE no mirror located Verified 2026-06-22

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firepower Threat vulnerability

Cisco ASA and FTD contain an infinite loop vulnerability (CWE-835) enabling remote denial of service. The flaw is exploited in the wild.

Verdict

Today item — known-exploited.

A remote attacker can trigger an infinite loop condition in Cisco ASA and FTD devices, causing them to become unresponsive and disrupting network security operations and traffic inspection.

CISA KEV Yes · 2024-04-243EPSS 0.63272 (verify live)4
01

Is it exploitable?

— the evidence, ranked above the score
Reported exploitation
17 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2024-04-24).
CISA KEV ↗Confirmed
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.63272 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Cisco, Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD). Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
NVD ↗Reported
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-835 CWE-835.CWE assignment from the public NVD record; the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
NVD ↗Reported
02

Who’s exploiting it?

— attribution turns risk into urgency
Attribution not established

No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.

03

Why it matters

— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board
1

Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1

Attacker
I craft a malicious network packet or request designed to trigger the infinite loop condition in the target device.
Business
Network security infrastructure becomes unavailable, halting threat detection and firewall policy enforcement.
2

Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2

Attacker
I send the crafted input to the vulnerable ASA or FTD instance, causing it to enter an infinite loop state.
Business
The affected security appliance stops processing legitimate traffic, creating a denial of service condition.
3

Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3

Attacker
I observe the device becoming unresponsive and confirm the denial of service impact.
Business
Organizations lose visibility and control over network traffic until the device is manually recovered or rebooted.
04

What to do

— defensible action
  • Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05

Coverage & confidence

— what we know, and what we don’t

Established (cited)

  • KEV listing (CISA)
  • EPSS probability (FIRST)
  • 17 reported-exploitation source(s)
  • CWE weakness mapping (NVD)
  • Catalogued by cisco (CNA)
  • Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden

  • No EUVD / GCVE mirror in feed — single-authority dependency for the identifier.
  • EPSS & exposure are time-varying; verify live at the source.
  • Threat-actor attribution not established from feed data — absence of a name is not absence of compromise.
  • No finder/reporter credit recorded in the public CVE entry — the work behind this find is unattributed.
  • Disclosure & credit2
    Catalogued by ciscoCNA
    Credited with finding itNo finder named in the public CVE record — the work behind this find is unattributed.