Security Affairspublished Mar 30, 06:42 UTC (Mar 30, 2022)ingested Sep 10, 06:12 UTC@securityaffairs

Threat actors actively exploit recently disclosed Sophos firewall bug

criticalThreat actor exploited in the wildimportance 60CVE-2022-1040

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Tagscve-2022-1040 threat-actor

Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →

CVE	Vulnerability	CVSS	EPSS	Flags	Affected	Exposure	Published
CVE-2022-1040	Authentication Bypass Leading to Unauthenticated RCE in Sophos Firewall (SFOS) CVE-2022-1040 is a critical authentication bypass in the User Portal and Webadmin of Sophos Firewall (SFOS) version v18.5 MR3 and older. A remote, unauthenticated attacker who can reach either web-facing service bypasses authentication and executes code on the firewall appliance. Successful exploitation yields full device compromise (CVSS 9.8 with high confidentiality, integrity, and availability impact), enabling traffic interception, persistence, and pivoting into the protected network. Any organization running an affected Sophos Firewall version where the User Portal or Webadmin is reachable, especially from the internet, is exposed. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: it was exploited as a zero-day in March 2022, added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog on 2022-03-31, and used in campaigns attributed to Chinese actors, including a U.S. indictment of a Chinese hacker for exploiting the flaw. Do: Upgrade Sophos Firewall to a fixed release (v18.5 MR4 or later, per Sophos' patch instructions). Until patched, restrict access to the User Portal and Webadmin to trusted management networks or VPN clients and remove any direct internet exposure to these services. Review device and authentication logs for signs of exploitation, including unexpected or modified administrator accounts and configuration changes, and follow the vendor/CISA required action to apply updates.	9.8	100%	KEV PoC ×2	Sophos Firewall (SFOS) v18.5 MR3 and older	largetens of thousands of internet-exposed User Portal/Webadmin instances among hundreds of thousands of deployed Sophos Firewall appliances	Mar 25, 2022

CVE

Vulnerability

CVSS

EPSS

Flags

Affected

Exposure

Published

CVE-2022-1040

Authentication Bypass Leading to Unauthenticated RCE in Sophos Firewall (SFOS)

CVE-2022-1040 is a critical authentication bypass in the User Portal and Webadmin of Sophos Firewall (SFOS) version v18.5 MR3 and older. A remote, unauthenticated attacker who can reach either web-facing service bypasses authentication and executes code on the firewall appliance. Successful exploitation yields full device compromise (CVSS 9.8 with high confidentiality, integrity, and availability impact), enabling traffic interception, persistence, and pivoting into the protected network. Any organization running an affected Sophos Firewall version where the User Portal or Webadmin is reachable, especially from the internet, is exposed. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: it was exploited as a zero-day in March 2022, added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog on 2022-03-31, and used in campaigns attributed to Chinese actors, including a U.S. indictment of a Chinese hacker for exploiting the flaw.

Do: Upgrade Sophos Firewall to a fixed release (v18.5 MR4 or later, per Sophos' patch instructions). Until patched, restrict access to the User Portal and Webadmin to trusted management networks or VPN clients and remove any direct internet exposure to these services. Review device and authentication logs for signs of exploitation, including unexpected or modified administrator accounts and configuration changes, and follow the vendor/CISA required action to apply updates.

9.8

100%

KEV PoC ×2

Sophos Firewall (SFOS) v18.5 MR3 and older

largetens of thousands of internet-exposed User Portal/Webadmin instances among hundreds of thousands of deployed Sophos Firewall appliances

Mar 25, 2022

Full article301 words · extracted from securityaffairs.com · click to collapse

Cybersecurity firm Sophos warned that the recently addressed CVE-2022-1040 flaw in Sophos Firewall is actively exploited in attacks.

Sophos has recently fixed an authentication bypass vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-1040, that resides in the User Portal and Webadmin areas of Sophos Firewall.

The CVE-2022-1040 flaw received a CVSS score of 9.8 and impacts Sophos Firewall versions 18.5 MR3 (18.5.3) and earlier. The vulnerability was reported to the security firm by an unnamed security researcher via its bug bounty program.

“An authentication bypass vulnerability allowing remote code execution was discovered in the User Portal and Webadmin of Sophos Firewall and responsibly disclosed to Sophos. It was reported via the Sophos bug bounty program by an external security researcher. The vulnerability has been fixed.” reads the advisory published by the company.

A remote attacker with access to the Firewall’s User Portal or Webadmin interface can exploit the flaw to bypass authentication and execute arbitrary code.

Sophos Firewall User Portal interface — Source Sophos community

The security vendor pointed out that the hotfixes will be automatically installed on its devices by default.

The company also recommends customers avoid exposing their User Portal and Webadmin to WAN.

Sophos is now warning that the CVE-2022-1040 flaw in Sophos Firewall is actively exploited in attacks aimed at a small set of Asian organizations.

“Sophos has observed this vulnerability being used to target a small set of specific organizations primarily in the South Asia region. We have informed each of these organizations directly. Sophos will provide further details as we continue to investigate.” reads the advisory published by the vendor.

Sophos added that users of older versions of its Firewall are required to upgrade to receive the latest protections and this fix.

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Pierluigi Paganini

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Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://securityaffairs.com/129604/security/sophos-firewall-cve-2022-1040-exploited.html