Cisco Warns of New Firewall Attack Exploiting CVE-2025-20333 and CVE-2025

CVE-2025-20333 is a buffer overflow (CWE-120) in the VPN web server of Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) software, caused by improper validation of user-supplied input in HTTP(S) requests. An attacker who already holds valid VPN user credentials can trigger it by sending crafted HTTP(S) requests to the device's VPN web interface; the flaw is remotely exploitable over the network with low attack complexity and no user interaction. A successful exploit allows arbitrary code execution as root, possibly resulting in complete compromise of the firewall or VPN gateway. Any organization running Cisco ASA or FTD software with the VPN web server enabled is affected. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: the CVE was added to CISA's KEV on 2025-09-25, EPSS assigns a 70.7% probability of exploitation within 30 days (99th percentile), and Cisco and the UK NCSC have warned of real-world attacks (including RayInitiator and LINE VIPER malware deployment) that chain this flaw with at least one companion Cisco vulnerability.

Do: Inventory all ASA/FTD devices with the VPN web server reachable by users (especially internet-exposed ones) and upgrade to the fixed releases listed in the Cisco PSIRT advisory; where patching is delayed, apply Cisco's recommended mitigations and hunt for indicators of the reported attack chain (RayInitiator/LINE VIPER). Because exploitation requires valid VPN credentials, treat VPN user credentials on affected gateways as potentially compromised and force resets. US federal agencies must follow the mitigation steps in CISA Emergency Directive 25-03 and BOD 22-01 timelines for this KEV entry.

A vulnerability in the RADIUS setting Reject RADIUS requests from clients with repeated failures on Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause Cisco ISE to restart unexpectedly. This vulnerability is due to a logic error when processing a RADIUS access request for a MAC address that is already a rejected endpoint. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specific sequence of multiple crafted RADIUS access request messages to Cisco ISE. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition when Cisco ISE restarts.

A vulnerability in the Contact Center Express (CCX) Editor application of Cisco Unified CCX could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and obtain administrative permissions pertaining to script creation and execution. This vulnerability is due to improper authentication mechanisms in the communication between the CCX Editor and an affected Unified CCX server. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by redirecting the authentication flow to a malicious server and tricking the CCX Editor into believing the authentication was successful. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to create and execute arbitrary scripts on the underlying operating system of an affected Unified CCX server, as an internal non-root user account.