CVEs / CVE-2024-20359

CVE-2024-20359: Cisco ASA and FTD Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

• Known exploited in the CISA KEV catalog since 24 Apr 2024
• medium 6 CVSS 3.1 (NVD)
• EPSS 18.8% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 97% of CVEs (30 Oct 2026)
• Last changed at its sources 11 Aug 2026

Summary

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) contain a privilege escalation vulnerability that can allow local privilege escalation from Administrator to root.

Description

A vulnerability in a legacy capability that allowed for the preloading of VPN clients and plug-ins and that has been available in Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to execute arbitrary code with root-level privileges. Administrator-level privileges are required to exploit this vulnerability. This vulnerability is due to improper validation of a file when it is read from system flash memory. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by copying a crafted file to the disk0: file system of an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected device after the next reload of the device, which could alter system behavior. Because the injected code could persist across device reboots, Cisco has raised the Security Impact Rating (SIR) of this advisory from Medium to High.

Affected and fixed versions

Exploitation

Severity

References

• CVE-2024-20359 on NVD
• CVE-2024-20359 in the CISA KEV catalog
• https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-asaftd-persist-rce-FLsNXF4h (cited by CISA)
• https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-asaftd-persist-rce-FLsNXF4h Vendor Advisory
• https://blog.talosintelligence.com/arcanedoor-new-espionage-focused-campaign-found-targeting-perimeter-network-devices/ Exploit, Third Party Advisory
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2024-20359 US Government Resource