CVE-2020-15069
Memory Safety in Sophos Xg Firewall Firmware 17.0 – 17.5
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HSummary
CVE-2020-15069 is a critical-severity Classic Buffer Overflow (CWE-120) vulnerability in Sophos Xg Firewall Firmware. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked in the top 5% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
Sophos XG Firewall versions 17.x through v17.5 MR12 contain a buffer overflow vulnerability tracked as CVE-2020-15069 and CWE-120. The flaw resides in the HTTP/S Bookmarks feature used for clientless access and carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 9.8 reflecting network-accessible, unauthenticated remote code execution with full impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
An unauthenticated attacker can send specially crafted requests to the affected feature over the network, triggering the overflow to execute arbitrary code on the firewall without requiring user interaction or credentials.
Vendor advisories direct administrators to apply the published hotfix HF062020.1 on all v17.x installations, and the issue is documented in Sophos security bulletins.
The vulnerability appears in CISA's catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities, confirming observed in-the-wild attacks against exposed appliances.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2020-7197
Vulnerability Data
Sophos XG Firewall 17.x through v17.5 MR12 allows a Buffer Overflow and remote code execution via the HTTP/S Bookmarks feature for clientless access. Hotfix HF062020.1 was published for all firewalls running v17.x.
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 06 February 2025
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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V5.2.1
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Platform-independent managed code eliminates the need for unchecked native buffer copies that are the root cause of classic buffer overflows.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure development practices directly enforce bounds checking and input validation that prevent classic buffer overflows.
Vulnerability identification processes such as code review or scanning detect classic buffer overflows before exploitation.
Routine patching replaces vulnerable code containing unchecked buffer copies with corrected versions.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure coding directly requires bounds-checked memory operations, addressing the root cause of CWE-120.
Security testing in development and acceptance can detect buffer overflows through fuzzing and static analysis, though it does not prevent them at the source.
Secure development life cycle mandates processes that can include input validation and bounds checking to prevent buffer overflows.
Application security requirements can specify input-size validation and safe buffer handling to mitigate classic buffer overflows.
Secure system architecture and engineering principles promote defensive coding patterns that reduce the likelihood of unchecked buffer copies.