CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-20006 — Cisco Firepower Threat Defense security vulnerability

High CVSS 8.6

A vulnerability in the hardware-based SSL/TLS cryptography functionality of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software for Cisco Firepower 2100 Series Appliances could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause an affected device to reload unexpectedly, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. This vulnerability is due to an implementation error within the cryptographic functions for SSL/TLS traffic processing when they are offloaded to the hardware. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted stream of SSL/TLS traffic to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause an unexpected error in the hardware-based cryptography engine, which could cause the device to reload.

Severity
High
CVSS
8.6 (3.1)
Published
2023-06-28
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-681

Affected products

  • cisco / firepower_threat_defense / 7.2.1
  • cisco / firepower_threat_defense / 7.2.2
  • cisco / firepower_threat_defense / 7.2.3
  • cisco / adaptive_security_appliance_software / 9.16.4
  • cisco / adaptive_security_appliance_software / 9.18.2
  • cisco / adaptive_security_appliance_software / 9.18.2.5

Matched remediation archetype

Cryptography, certificate, signature, and channel validation

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Inventory affected algorithms, key uses, trust stores, certificate validation settings, random sources, and plaintext channels across clients and services.
  • Determine which secrets, identities, signatures, or data protections depend on the affected primitive or validation path.
  • Check debug, compatibility, fallback, and hostname or audience override settings in build and runtime configuration.

Remediate safely

  • Use a maintained platform cryptographic API with approved algorithms, modes, parameters, randomness, and full peer identity validation.
  • Remove insecure fallback and validation bypasses; separate keys by purpose and load them from managed secret storage.
  • Plan rotation or reissuance for affected keys, certificates, tokens, hashes, or ciphertext and document compatibility sequencing.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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