Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:NCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2020-8196 is a medium-severity Improper Access Control (CWE-284) vulnerability in Citrix Application Delivery Controller Firmware. Its CVSS base score is 4.3 (Medium).
Operationally, ranked in the top 2% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2020-8196 is an improper access control vulnerability, also referenced under CWE-284 and CWE-287, that affects Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway versions prior to 13.0-58.30, 12.1-57.18, 12.0-63.21, 11.1-64.14, and 10.5-70.18, as well as Citrix SD-WAN WAN-OP versions prior to 11.1.1a, 11.0.3d, and 10.2.7. The flaw permits limited information disclosure and carries a CVSS 3.1 base score of 4.3 reflecting network attack vector, low complexity, and low privileges required.
Low-privileged authenticated users can exploit the issue over the network to obtain restricted information that should otherwise be inaccessible, as demonstrated by public proof-of-concept material describing local file inclusion behavior in the affected appliances.
Citrix advisory CTX276688 addresses the affected products and provides updated builds that resolve the access control weakness; organizations are advised to apply the listed version upgrades. The vulnerability is also catalogued by CISA among actively exploited issues, indicating confirmed real-world targeting of unpatched Citrix deployments.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2020-29073
Vulnerability Data
Improper access control in Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway versions before 13.0-58.30, 12.1-57.18, 12.0-63.21, 11.1-64.14 and 10.5-70.18 and Citrix SDWAN WAN-OP versions before 11.1.1a, 11.0.3d and 10.2.7 resulting in limited information disclosure to low privileged users.
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 03 November 2021
Related Threats
Threat-Actor AttributionAI
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
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.
The awareness and training policy mandates training on access control practices, directly reducing the likelihood of improper access control weaknesses being introduced or exploited.
Training covers access control policies and the consequences of improper access grants or usage by users.
Security training teaches access control policies and enforcement, reducing improper access control implementations.
Provides capability to review session content, directly detecting violations of access control.
System audit review detects violations of access controls by identifying unauthorized access attempts.
Control assessments verify that access controls are implemented correctly and operating as intended, detecting improper access control before exploitation.
Requiring formal approval, documented controls, and responsibilities for inter-system exchanges directly enforces proper access control between systems.
Penetration testing simulates unauthorized access attempts, directly detecting and enabling remediation of improper access control weaknesses.
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.
A.5.1 only requires that an information security policy and topic-specific policies (including on access control) exist and are reviewed; it does not itself enforce, implement or act on any access restriction, so the weakness can still be exploited (per the owner's explicit rule that governance/dependency clauses score none on effect verbs).
A.5.15 directly mandates determining requirements, defining/implementing topic-specific access control policy+rules (with explicit references to 8.3, 5.16, 5.18), and enforcing authorized access while preventing unauthorized access, which squarely stops exploitation of most CWE-284 instances; the bounded remainder is the physical slice (explicitly delegated to 7.2-7.4) plus any second-order defects like path traversal that are not authorization decisions.
A.5.16's identity lifecycle (unique binding, timely disable/remove, no duplicates, oversight of shared/non-human) directly stops most improper access by ensuring the actor in an access decision is correctly identified and authorized; the bounded remainder is non-identity mechanisms in CWE-284 such as path traversal or CSRF that do not turn on actor identity at all.
A.5.17 directly mandates generation of non-guessable unique secrets, secure transmission, immediate change of defaults/temporary creds, strong password enforcement, no-reuse, and compromise response, which stops most improper-authentication exploits at source; the bounded remainder is non-password authentication methods and sufficiency-of-proof cases (e.g. IA-2/IA-5 enhancements) left to other controls.
A.5.18 directly governs the provisioning, review, adjustment and timely revocation of both physical and logical access rights per business rules, segregation of duties and risk-evaluated changes/terminations; this stops most unauthorized-actor exploitation paths named by CWE-284, with a bounded remainder (e.g. path-traversal or CSRF cases that are not authorization decisions at all)
A.5.2 defines and assigns roles/responsibilities for protection of information and risk acceptance; it does not itself enforce any access decision and cannot stop exploitation of improper access control (per the owner's labeling rule: governance/dependency clauses do not score on prevent/mitigate verbs)
Hardening callouts derived
DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.