CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-5970 — Sonicwall Sma 200 Firmware security vulnerability

High CVSS 8.8

Improper authentication in the SMA100 SSL-VPN virtual office portal allows a remote authenticated attacker to create an identical external domain user using accent characters, resulting in an MFA bypass.

Severity
High
CVSS
8.8 (3.1)
Published
2023-12-05
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
operating-system
Weaknesses
CWE-287

Affected products

  • sonicwall / sma_200_firmware
  • sonicwall / sma_210_firmware
  • sonicwall / sma_400_firmware
  • sonicwall / sma_410_firmware
  • sonicwall / sma_500v_firmware

Matched remediation archetype

Authentication bypass and missing authentication

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

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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