CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2020-3297 — Cisco Sg250X-24 Firmware security vulnerability

Critical CVSS 9.8

A vulnerability in session management for the web-based interface of Cisco Small Business Smart and Managed Switches could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to defeat authentication protections and gain unauthorized access to the management interface. The attacker could obtain the privileges of the highjacked session account, which could include administrator privileges on the device. The vulnerability is due to the use of weak entropy generation for session identifier values. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to determine a current session identifier through brute force and reuse that session identifier to take over an ongoing session. In this way, an attacker could take actions within the management interface with privileges up to the level of the administrative user.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.8 (3.1)
Published
2020-07-02
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
operating-system
Weaknesses
CWE-287

Affected products

  • cisco / sg250x-24_firmware
  • cisco / sg250x-24p_firmware
  • cisco / sg250x-48_firmware
  • cisco / sg250x-48p_firmware
  • cisco / sg250-08_firmware
  • cisco / sg250-08hp_firmware

Showing 6 representative product identities from 118 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Authentication bypass and missing authentication

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Check exposure

  • Map every affected endpoint and protocol path, including alternate ports, legacy routes, recovery flows, service accounts, and machine-to-machine access.
  • Confirm which deployments enable the affected authentication mode and whether the interface is reachable from untrusted networks.
  • Review session, token, credential, and proxy trust configuration without attempting account takeover.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and centralize fail-closed authentication before protected request handling.
  • Remove default or embedded credentials, rotate affected secrets and sessions, and bind authentication decisions to the intended audience and channel.
  • Add negative tests for alternate routes, malformed or absent credentials, recovery flows, and proxy-derived identity.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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