FalehSec Exploited-vulnerability triage · joined from CISA KEV, NVD CVSS and EPSS

CVE-2024-20439

Cisco · Smart Licensing Utility · Cisco Smart Licensing Utility Static Credential Vulnerability

Verdict
Patch first · actively exploited, reachable from the internet without credentials, and in the top 1% of CVEs by near-term exploitation probability

Added to CISA KEV 2025-03-31 · exploited in the wild for 545 days

What an attacker can reach How likely Time What CISA says to do Sources All 545

What an attacker can reach

CVSS 9.8 CRITICAL. The score is a summary; these three components are the part that decides whether something scanning the internet can use it.

Attack vectornetworkreachable over the network, with no local access needed
Privileges requirednoneneeds no credentials at all
User interactionnonecan be triggered with nobody interacting with the page or request
Base vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
WeaknessCWE-912

This describes the vulnerability. It says nothing about whether your systems run it.

How likely

EPSS puts the probability of exploitation in the next 30 days at 0.9709, which places it in the top 1% of all tracked CVEs. The percentile is the more useful half: 0.18 in absolute terms sounds low until you know most of the internet-facing software in the world scores under that.

EPSS probability0.9709
Percentile0.999 — top 1%

Time

Added to KEV2025-03-31
Days exploited545
Federal remediation duenot set
Ransomware useno known ransomware campaign use

What CISA says to do

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

A vulnerability in Cisco Smart Licensing Utility (CSLU) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to log into an affected system by using a static administrative credential. This vulnerability is due to an undocumented static user credential for an administrative account. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by using the static credentials to login to the affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to login to the affected system with administrative rights over the CSLU application API.

Sources