CVE-2024-20439
A vulnerability in Cisco Smart Licensing Utility (CSLU) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to log into an affected system by…
- 9.8CriticalCVSS base score
- 97.1%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 0.1% of all CVEs
- YesKnown exploitedin CISA's KEV since 31 Mar 2025
- 1Public exploitsMetasploit, Nuclei and Exploit-DB
Description
A vulnerability in Cisco Smart Licensing Utility (CSLU) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to log into an affected system by using a static administrative credential. This vulnerability is due to an undocumented static user credential for an administrative account. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by using the static credentials to login to the affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to login to the affected system with administrative rights over the CSLU application API.
Exploited in the wild
CISA lists this vulnerability in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog as Cisco Smart Licensing Utility Static Credential Vulnerability.
- Added
- 31 Mar 2025
- Fix due (US federal)
- 21 Apr 2025
- Used by ransomware
- Not known
Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
ENISA's EU Vulnerability Database lists it as exploited, from CISA's KEV, since 31 Mar 2025.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. The public collections list a Nuclei template for it. CISA's SSVC rates its exploitation: it is being exploited.
Show the exploits1
Nuclei templates1 template
- Hardcoded Admin Credentials For Cisco Smart Licensing Utility API (Nuclei template) (opens in a new tab)
http/cves/2024/CVE-2024-20439.yamlSeverity critical
Modules, templates and exploits as listed by the Metasploit Framework (BSD-3-Clause), ProjectDiscovery's Nuclei templates (MIT) and the Exploit Database (GPLv2), read once a day. Where the data comes from
Timeline
ID reserved
By cisco
- 10 months later
· 10 months later
Published
- 7 months later
· 7 months later
Added to CISA KEV
Known exploited in the wild
- 7 months later
· 7 months later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| ciscoCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | Critical9.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Analyzed | 3.1 | Critical9.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 97.1% · top 0.1% of all CVEs (10 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: total
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Critical 9.8.
Affected products
Cisco · Cisco Smart License Utility
- affected 2.1.0
- affected 2.0.0
- affected 2.2.0
What to do
Exploitation: In March 2025, the Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) became aware of attempted exploitation of this vulnerability in the wild. Cisco continues to strongly recommend that customers upgrade to a fixed software release to remediate this vulnerability.
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- CISA KEV catalog (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2024-18154 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2024-20439)Record last updated .