CVE-2022-20854
Published: 15 November 2022
Summary
CVE-2022-20854 is a high-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) vulnerability in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, ranked in the top 25.6% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2022-26104
Vulnerability details
A vulnerability in the processing of SSH connections of Cisco Firepower Management Center (FMC) and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device. This…
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vulnerability is due to improper error handling when an SSH session fails to be established. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a high rate of crafted SSH connections to the instance. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause resource exhaustion, resulting in a reboot on the affected device.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
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.
Updated contingency plans include current procedures to detect, contain, and recover from resource exhaustion, limiting an attacker's ability to sustain impact from uncontrolled consumption.
MTTF monitoring plus ready substitutes directly mitigate sustained resource exhaustion by allowing component swap before or at failure.
Limiting concurrent sessions directly prevents uncontrolled resource consumption by capping the number of active sessions per user or account.
Provides defined handling (alert and additional actions) for the exceptional condition of audit logging failure.
Analysis identifies uncontrolled resource consumption indicative of denial-of-service or abuse attempts.
Supplies a concrete handling action (safe mode) for exceptional conditions, mitigating risks from improper or absent handling that could allow continued attacks.
By preparing users for contingency scenarios, the control promotes proper handling of exceptional conditions instead of default or unsafe behaviors.
Contingency plan testing includes resource exhaustion scenarios to verify recovery, making it harder for attackers to sustain exploits that cause uncontrolled consumption.