CVE-2024-53704
Published: 09 January 2025
Summary
CVE-2024-53704 is a critical-severity Improper Authentication (CWE-287) vulnerability in Sonicwall Sonicos. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked in the top 0.1% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-17 (Remote Access) and IA-2 (Identification and Authentication (Organizational Users)).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Requires timely identification, reporting, and patching of flaws like the improper authentication vulnerability in SonicWall SSLVPN, as urged by CISA for this actively exploited CVE.
Mandates secure authorization and authentication mechanisms for remote access portals such as SSLVPN to block unauthenticated remote attackers from bypassing controls.
Enforces identification and authentication for organizational users accessing systems, directly countering the SSLVPN authentication bypass that grants unauthorized logical access.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Improper authentication bypass on public-facing SSLVPN directly enables remote exploitation of internet-accessible services without credentials.
NVD Description
An Improper Authentication vulnerability in the SSLVPN authentication mechanism allows a remote attacker to bypass authentication.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2024-53704 is an Improper Authentication vulnerability (CWE-287) in the SSLVPN authentication mechanism of SonicWall products. Published on January 9, 2025, it has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating critical severity with network accessibility, low attack complexity, no privileges or user interaction required, and high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. A remote attacker can exploit this flaw to bypass authentication entirely.
The attack scenario involves any unauthenticated remote attacker over the network who can send crafted requests to the SSLVPN interface. Successful exploitation grants unauthorized access, potentially allowing the attacker to perform privileged operations within the VPN environment, leading to data exfiltration, modification, or disruption of services as reflected in the high CVSS impact metrics.
SonicWall published advisory SNWLID-2025-0003 detailing the vulnerability at psirt.global.sonicwall.com/vuln-detail/SNWLID-2025-0003. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added CVE-2024-53704 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog at cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2024-53704, indicating active exploitation in the wild and urging federal agencies to apply mitigations promptly.
Security practitioners should prioritize patching affected SonicWall SSLVPN deployments, as real-world exploitation is confirmed via CISA's catalog.
Details
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 18 February 2025