CVE-2023-20269
9.1, critical Known exploited Used in ransomwareCisco Adaptive Security Appliance and Firepower Threat Defense Unauthorized Access Vulnerability
- CVSS
- 9.1, critical critical CVSS v3.1
- EPSS, next 30 days
- 25% higher than 97.9% of scored CVEs
- Exploitation
- Confirmed in the wild
- Published
- 6 Sept 20233 years ago
Known exploited
CISA added this to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog on 13 Sept 2023 and links it to ransomware activity. US federal agencies had to remediate by 4 Oct 2023, a deadline that has passed.
Required action. Apply mitigations per vendor instructions for group-lock and vpn-simultaneous-logins or discontinue use of the product for unsupported devices.
Description
A vulnerability in the remote access VPN feature of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to conduct a brute force attack in an attempt to identify valid username and password combinations or an authenticated, remote attacker to establish a clientless SSL VPN session with an unauthorized user. This vulnerability is due to improper separation of authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) between the remote access VPN feature and the HTTPS management and site-to-site VPN features. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by specifying a default connection profile/tunnel group while conducting a brute force attack or while establishing a clientless SSL VPN session using valid credentials. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to achieve one or both of the following: Identify valid credentials that could then be used to establish an unauthorized remote access VPN session. Establish a clientless SSL VPN session (only when running Cisco ASA Software Release 9.16 or earlier). Notes: Establishing a client-based remote access VPN tunnel is not possible as these default connection profiles/tunnel groups do not and cannot have an IP address pool configured. This vulnerability does not allow an attacker to bypass authentication. To successfully establish a remote access VPN session, valid credentials are required, including a valid second factor if multi-factor authentication (MFA) is configured. Cisco will release software updates that address this vulnerability. There are workarounds that address this vulnerability.
Details
- Vendor
- Cisco
- Product
- Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
- Weakness
- CWE-288 (opens in a new tab)
- Status
- Analyzed
- Updated
- 11 Aug 2026
- Assigner
- psirt@cisco.com
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
References 2
The kind is read from NVD's tags where present and from the shape of the URL otherwise, so treat it as a hint.
Other Cisco CVEs
Every Cisco CVE we holdSame vendor in what we hold, not a known link between the flaws.
- CVE-2026-76519 Cisco Secure Email Gateway Relative Path Traversal Vulnerability KEV EPSS 2% 9.8, critical
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- CVE-2026-76460 Cisco Identity Services Engine Incorrect Use of Privileged APIs Vulnerability KEV EPSS 14% 10, critical
- CVE-2026-76461 Cisco Secure Email Gateway SQL Injection Vulnerability KEV EPSS 30% 9.8, critical
- CVE-2026-20349 Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Heap Inspection Vulnerability KEV EPSS 1% 8.6, high
- CVE-2026-20316 Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Use of Hard-coded Password Vulnerability KEV EPSS 35% 5.3, medium
- CVE-2026-20262 Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager Directory or Path Traversal Vulnerability KEV EPSS 28% 6.5, medium
- CVE-2026-20245 Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager Improper Encoding or Escaping of Output Vulnerability KEV EPSS 25% 7.8, high
Beyond this page
Is CVE-2023-20269 in your network?
This page tells you how dangerous CVE-2023-20269 is out there. Whether it sits on one of your devices, only a scan of your own network can tell. That is what our systems do, every day, for the companies we protect.
CVE-2023-20269 is in the CISA catalogue of exploited vulnerabilities: attackers are already exploiting it.
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EXYS7600 OCELOT
Find it before attackers do
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EXYS7950 KONDRA
Detect it if it's exploited
Until the patch is applied, Kondra monitors your network, events and endpoints in real time. It keeps an inventory of the software installed on every endpoint, and its anomaly detection rules flag what an attacker does once inside.
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Assembled from the NVD 2.0 API, the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog and FIRST EPSS. Scores are as of our last collection on 17 Oct 2026, not the live upstream state.