Firepower Threat Defense
CVE-2020-3255
HIGH
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Resource consumption limits
MITRE ATT&CK
1 technique across 1 tactic: Impact The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | CVSS score of 7.5 (HIGH). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, no privileges required, no user interaction not required. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote attacker could cause denial of service by exhausting system resources by sending crafted requests to the affected application. No authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
A vulnerability in the packet processing functionality of Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
RemediationAI
No vendor patch is available at time of analysis. Monitor vendor advisories for updates. Implement rate limiting, set resource quotas, validate input sizes, use timeouts.
Affects your stack
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Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified as Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400), which allows attackers to cause denial of service by exhausting system resources. A vulnerability in the packet processing functionality of Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to inefficient memory management. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a high rate of IPv4 or IPv6 traffic through an affected device. This traffic would need to match a configured block action in an access control policy. An exploit could allow the attacker to cause a memory exhaustion condition on the affected device, which would result in a DoS for traffic transiting the device, as well as sluggish performance of the management interface. Once the flood is stopped, performance should return to previous states. Affected products include: Cisco Firepower Threat Defense, Cisco Asa 5505 Firmware, Cisco Asa 5510 Firmware, Cisco Asa 5512-X Firmware, Cisco Asa 5515-X Firmware.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
A vulnerability in the packet processing functionality of Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to inefficient memory management. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a high rate of IPv4 or IPv6 traffic through an affected device. This traffic would need to match a configured block action in an access control policy. An exploit could allow the attacker to cause a memory exhaustion condition on the affected device, which would result in a DoS for traffic transiting the device, as well as sluggish performance of the management interface. Once the flood is stopped, performance should return to previous states.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
VulDB
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
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GitHub PoC
Exploit-DB