CVE-2024-12728
Sophos Firewall Firmware ≤ 20.0.3
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2024-12728 is a critical-severity Use of Weak Credentials (CWE-1391) vulnerability in Sophos Firewall Firmware. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, ranked in the top 40% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to IA-5 (Authenticator Management) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2024-51076
Vulnerability Data
A weak credentials vulnerability potentially allows privileged system access via SSH to Sophos Firewall older than version 20.0 MR3 (20.0.3).
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
IA-5 directly requires management of authenticator strength, distribution, and replacement, stopping default or guessable credentials from being introduced or used.
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.5.17 mandates generation of non-guessable unique credentials, immediate change of defaults/temporary secrets, strong password enforcement, no reuse, blocking of compromised passwords, and secure transmission/storage; this stops exploitation of weak/guessable/default credentials for most but not all cases in CWE-1391 (e.g. leaves some non-password credential forms or post-compromise reuse outside its explicit scope).
Restricts privileged accounts but does not explicitly address default or hard-coded credentials for those accounts.
Requires security activities throughout the SDLC that can catch weak credentials, but does not mandate their elimination.
Secure-coding rules can prohibit hard-coded passwords, yet coverage depends on specific coding standards adopted.
Security testing can discover weak credentials, but does not guarantee they are prevented by design.
A.8.5 mandates strong, multi-factor, non-guessable authentication techniques (with brute-force protection, no cleartext, etc.) that stop weak credentials from being successfully exploited; the bounded remainder is hard-coded/default credentials inside non-interactive product components where no human or session authentication occurs at all.
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-1391, a class-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-521.