Security Resilience

CVE-2023-20252

Auth Bypass in Cisco Catalyst Sd-Wan Manager 20.11.1.2 … 20.9.3.2

Published
27 September 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 9.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.011 65th percentile
Risk Priority 73 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-20252 is a critical-severity Missing Authorization (CWE-862) vulnerability in Cisco Catalyst Sd-Wan Manager. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).

Operationally, ranked in the top 35% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

A vulnerability in the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) APIs of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to gain unauthorized access to the application as an arbitrary user. This vulnerability is due to improper authentication…

more

checks for SAML APIs. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending requests directly to the SAML API. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to generate an authorization token sufficient to gain access to the application.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-20301Same vendor: Cisco
CVE-2024-20442Same vendor: Cisco
CVE-2023-20064Same vendor: Cisco
CVE-2024-20477Same vendor: Cisco
CVE-2025-20362Same vendor: Cisco
CVE-2025-20302Same vendor: Cisco
CVE-2024-20355Same vendor: Cisco
CVE-2024-20438Same vendor: Cisco
CVE-2017-6622Same vendor: Cisco
CVE-2025-20125Same vendor: Cisco

Affected Assets

cisco
catalyst sd-wan manager
20.11.1.2, 20.9.3.2

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.

addresses: CWE-287 CWE-862

Session content review can reveal authentication bypasses or failures in session establishment.

addresses: CWE-287 CWE-862

Assessments check authentication mechanisms for correct implementation and effectiveness, reducing successful authentication bypass attempts.

addresses: CWE-287 CWE-862

Identity providers centralize and enforce authentication mechanisms, reducing improper authentication.

addresses: CWE-862 CWE-287

Requires explicit authorization before any identifier can be assigned, preventing missing authorization.

addresses: CWE-287 CWE-862

Personnel screening, identity verification, and access-agreement requirements support reliable authentication and reduce authentication bypass opportunities.

addresses: CWE-287 CWE-862

Requiring explicit security roles and risk integration in the SDLC forces authentication mechanisms to be planned, documented, and validated instead of omitted or weakly implemented.

addresses: CWE-287 CWE-862

Decoy authentication surfaces detect bypass attempts and deflect real credential attacks through observable malicious interactions.

addresses: CWE-862

Requiring an access control policy ensures authorization checks are defined and applied for critical functions.

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.

blocks

Requiring formal authorization of every access request before rights are granted ensures that checks for required permissions are performed, preventing missing authorization checks from being introduced.

blocks

Mandating segregated approval and oversight for non-human identities reduces the chance that weak or orphaned credentials can be exploited for unauthorized authentication.

blocks

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.

blocks

A.5.18's provisioning, review, revocation and activation steps (incl. owner approval, SoD, timely removal on role/termination change) directly stop exploitation of missing authorization checks by ensuring no actor receives or retains rights to resources they should not access; the bounded remainder is that it cannot stop missing-authorization defects inside the enforcement mechanism itself once rights have been granted (e.g. flawed code that ignores the rights table).

finds

By requiring competent outsiders to verify that every function enforces the need-to-know principle, the control lowers the likelihood that missing authorization checks persist undetected.

blocks

A.5.8 integrates risk assessment, requirements elicitation and governance into the project lifecycle so that authorization needs can be identified and specified; it does not itself perform or enforce authorization checks, so the missing-authorization weakness can still be present and exploitable.

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.

  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-862, a class-level weakness, and none of its children carries one either.
  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-287, a class-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-295, CWE-306.

References