Threats / Cisco / CVE-2020-3452
CVE-2020-3452
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-09-19
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firepower Threat vulnerability
Cisco ASA and FTD contain an improper input validation vulnerability in HTTP request URL processing. Attackers can exploit directory traversal sequences to access arbitrary files in the web services filesystem.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
A remote attacker can send crafted HTTP requests with directory traversal payloads to bypass path restrictions and read sensitive files from affected Cisco security appliances without authentication, enabling reconnaissance and credential theft.
CISA KEV Yes · 2021-11-035EPSS 0.99992 (verify live)6Exploit Weaponized · public PoC7CVSS 7.53CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Impact: partial4
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreExploit available
Fully weaponized — public exploit code is cataloged for this vulnerability.We link the existence of the exploit; we do not host or redistribute payloads.
Reported exploitation
782 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 2021-11-03).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.99992 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 7.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N) · Affected: Cisco, Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD). Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CNA-assigned (CVE.org), version 3.1, set at disclosure.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-20 Improper Input Validation.CWE — CNA-assigned (CVE.org); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Technical Impact: partialCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 469 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
Public exploit available
Public exploit tooling is catalogued for this CVE (a public proof-of-concept / detection template). Catalog entries: nuclei template. We link the catalog page(s) only — no payload or code is hosted or restated here.Link, never host — the catalog page is the source; basicsecurity.net does not redistribute payloads.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution 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 board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I craft an HTTP request with directory traversal sequences targeting the web interface of a Cisco ASA or FTD device.
Business
Sensitive configuration files and credentials stored on the appliance become accessible to unauthenticated attackers.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I send the malicious request to the device's web services endpoint, bypassing input validation controls.
Business
The organization loses control over which files are exposed, risking disclosure of firewall rules, VPN configurations, and authentication data.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I retrieve arbitrary files from the web services filesystem to map the device configuration and identify further attack vectors.
Business
Attackers gain intelligence needed to compromise the perimeter security infrastructure and pivot into the internal network.
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’tEstablished (cited)
Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden
Disclosure & credit2
Catalogued by ciscoCNA
Credited with finding itNo finder is named in the public CVE record or the scanned vendor advisory — attribution scoped to the sources checked.
Found an error? Propose a correction.
A correction is a cited counter-claim — it must cite a source,
gets reviewed by a second human, and is never auto-applied. See the
correction convention and our identity
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