CVE-2024-20481A vulnerability in the Remote Access VPN (RAVPN) service of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat…
- 5.8MediumCVSS base score
- 15.9%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 3.1% of all CVEs
- YesKnown exploitedin CISA's KEV since 24 Oct 2024
- YesPublic exploitsa reference or SSVC says so
Description
A vulnerability in the Remote Access VPN (RAVPN) service of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) of the RAVPN service. This vulnerability is due to resource exhaustion. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a large number of VPN authentication requests to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to exhaust resources, resulting in a DoS of the RAVPN service on the affected device. Depending on the impact of the attack, a reload of the device may be required to restore the RAVPN service. Services that are not related to VPN are not affected. Cisco Talos discussed these attacks in the blog post Large-scale brute-force activity targeting VPNs, SSH services with commonly used login credentials.
Exploited in the wild
CISA lists this vulnerability in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog as Cisco ASA and FTD Denial-of-Service Vulnerability.
- Added
- 24 Oct 2024
- Fix due (US federal)
- 14 Nov 2024
- Used by ransomware
- Not known
Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
ENISA's EU Vulnerability Database lists it as exploited, from CISA's KEV, since 24 Oct 2024.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. CISA's SSVC rates its exploitation: it is being exploited.
Timeline
ID reserved
By cisco
- 12 months later
· 12 months later
Published
- 1 day later
· 1 day later
Added to CISA KEV
Known exploited in the wild
- 12 months later
· 12 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 | Medium5.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:L |
| NVDNVD · Analyzed | 3.1 | Medium5.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:L |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 15.9% · top 3.1% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 5.8.
Affected products
Cisco · Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
- affected 9.8.1
- affected 9.8.1.5
- affected 9.8.1.7
- affected 9.8.2
- affected 9.8.2.8
- affected 9.8.2.14
- affected 9.8.2.15
- affected 9.8.2.17
- affected 9.8.2.20
- affected 9.8.2.24
- affected 9.8.2.26
- affected 9.8.2.28
- affected 9.8.2.33
- affected 9.8.2.35
- affected 9.8.2.38
- affected 9.8.3.8
- affected 9.8.3.11
- affected 9.8.3.14
- affected 9.8.3.16
- affected 9.8.3.18
- affected 9.8.3.21
- affected 9.8.3
- affected 9.8.3.26
- affected 9.8.3.29
- affected 9.8.4
- affected 9.8.4.3
- affected 9.8.4.7
- affected 9.8.4.8
- affected 9.8.4.10
- affected 9.8.4.12
- affected 9.8.4.15
- affected 9.8.4.17
- affected 9.8.2.45
- affected 9.8.4.25
- affected 9.8.4.20
- affected 9.8.4.22
- affected 9.8.4.26
- affected 9.8.4.29
- affected 9.8.4.32
- affected 9.8.4.33
- and 159 more
Cisco · Cisco Firepower Threat Defense Software
- affected 6.2.3
- affected 6.2.3.1
- affected 6.2.3.2
- affected 6.2.3.3
- affected 6.2.3.4
- affected 6.2.3.5
- affected 6.2.3.6
- affected 6.2.3.7
- affected 6.2.3.8
- affected 6.2.3.10
- affected 6.2.3.11
- affected 6.2.3.9
- affected 6.2.3.12
- affected 6.2.3.13
- affected 6.2.3.14
- affected 6.2.3.15
- affected 6.2.3.16
- affected 6.2.3.17
- affected 6.2.3.18
- affected 6.6.0
- affected 6.6.0.1
- affected 6.6.1
- affected 6.6.3
- affected 6.6.4
- affected 6.6.5
- affected 6.6.5.1
- affected 6.6.5.2
- affected 6.6.7
- affected 6.6.7.1
- affected 6.6.7.2
- affected 6.4.0
- affected 6.4.0.1
- affected 6.4.0.3
- affected 6.4.0.2
- affected 6.4.0.4
- affected 6.4.0.5
- affected 6.4.0.6
- affected 6.4.0.7
- affected 6.4.0.8
- affected 6.4.0.9
- and 50 more
What to do
Exploitation: The Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) is aware of malicious use of the vulnerability that is described in this advisory.
References
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-2024-18196 (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-2024-20481)Record last updated .