Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software and Firepower Threat Defense Software SSL/TLS Denial of Service Vulnerability

A vulnerability in the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)/Transport Layer Security (TLS) handler of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to exhaust memory resources on the affected device, leading to a denial of service (DoS) condition.

The vulnerability is due to improper resource management for inbound SSL/TLS connections. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by establishing multiple SSL/TLS connections with specific conditions to the affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to exhaust the memory on the affected device, causing the device to stop accepting new SSL/TLS connections and resulting in a DoS condition for services on the device that process SSL/TLS traffic. Manual intervention is required to recover an affected device.

Cisco has released software updates that address the vulnerability described in this advisory. There are no workarounds that address this vulnerability.

This advisory is available at the following link:
https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-asa-ssl-vpn-dos-qY7BHpjN [“https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-asa-ssl-vpn-dos-qY7BHpjN”]

This advisory is part of the May 2020 Cisco ASA, FMC, and FTD Software Security Advisory Bundled Publication, which includes 12 Cisco Security Advisories that describe 12 vulnerabilities. For a complete list of the advisories and links to them, see Cisco Event Response: May 2020 Cisco ASA, FMC, and FTD Software Security Advisory Bundled Publication [“https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/viewErp.x?alertId=ERP-73830”].