CISA warns of latest Ivanti firewall bug being exploited by suspected Chinese hackers

Ivanti Connect Secure (formerly Pulse Connect Secure) and Ivanti Policy Secure appliances contain a command injection flaw (CWE-77) in their web components, triggered when an authenticated administrator sends crafted requests to the appliance. The bug can be chained with the separate authentication bypass CVE-2023-46805, allowing an unauthenticated attacker to achieve the same result. Successful exploitation lets an attacker execute arbitrary commands and code on the appliance, providing a foothold into the networks behind the VPN or network access control gateway. Any organization running these appliances, typically enterprises and government agencies often deployed directly on the internet perimeter, is affected. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: the flaw was added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2024-01-10 with known ransomware use and EPSS assigns a 100% probability of exploitation within 30 days, although no public proof-of-concept is available.

Do: Apply Ivanti's mitigations or patched builds immediately per vendor instructions, addressing the chained authentication bypass CVE-2023-46805 at the same time, and discontinue or restrict use of any appliance for which mitigations are unavailable, especially if it is internet-facing. Because exploitation with ransomware use is known, assume compromise is possible: review appliance web logs for suspicious requests and run Ivanti's integrity-checking guidance to verify appliance images before and after remediation. Where feasible, restrict direct internet exposure of the appliance web interface and monitor for further vendor advisories.

CVE-2025-0282 is a stack-based buffer overflow (CWE-121) in Ivanti Connect Secure, Policy Secure, and ZTA Gateways, reachable by unauthenticated network input. An attacker can trigger it remotely by sending crafted, unauthenticated traffic to a vulnerable gateway, overwriting stack memory and gaining code execution under the appliance's context. Successful exploitation yields unauthenticated remote code execution on the device, giving the attacker control of the VPN/secure-access gateway and a foothold into the protected network. Organizations running any of the affected Ivanti secure-access products are exposed; the source data specifies no version ranges, so defenders should consult Ivanti's advisory for exact affected and fixed releases. The flaw is being actively exploited: it was added to CISA KEV on 2025-01-08 with known ransomware use, and EPSS assigns a 100% probability of exploitation within 30 days (100th percentile), despite no public PoC being known.

Do: Apply the patched releases identified in Ivanti's advisory and follow CISA's required action: hunt for signs of compromise, remediate if indicators are found, and apply updates before returning any device to service. Because exploitation is active and ransomware use is known, treat any appliance that was internet-reachable before patching as potentially compromised (check integrity, rotate credentials). Exact fixed versions were not included in the source data, so verify the correct update path for your branch (including older Connect Secure/Policy Secure releases) against Ivanti's bulletin.

Ivanti Connect Secure, Policy Secure, and ZTA Gateways contain a stack-based buffer overflow (CWE-121) that can be triggered by a remote, unauthenticated attacker sending crafted input that overruns a fixed-size stack buffer on the affected gateway. Successful exploitation yields remote code execution on the appliance, giving an attacker control of an enterprise VPN or zero-trust access gateway and a foothold in the surrounding network. Any organization running the affected Ivanti gateway products is exposed, with impact concentrated among enterprises using these appliances for remote-access VPN and zero-trust network access. The vulnerability was added to CISA's KEV catalog on 2025-04-04 with known ransomware use, and its maximum EPSS score (100.0%, 100th percentile) signals near-certain exploitation pressure within 30 days. No public proof-of-concept is known, but confirmed in-the-wild exploitation makes this an actively abused, high-priority flaw.

Do: Apply the mitigations required by CISA and update Connect Secure, Policy Secure, and ZTA Gateways to the patched releases designated in Ivanti's advisory, prioritizing internet-exposed VPN gateways. Given known ransomware use, review appliance and downstream logs for signs of compromise, and treat unpatched gateways as high risk given the 100th-percentile EPSS score.