CVE-2020-3298: Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software and Firepower Threat Defense Software Malformed OSPF Packets Processing Denial of Service Vulnerability

Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 2.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2020-05-06 · updated 2026-08-11
Weakness: CWE-125

Description

A vulnerability in the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) implementation of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause the reload of an affected device, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to improper memory protection mechanisms while processing certain OSPF packets. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a series of malformed OSPF packets in a short period of time to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a reload of the affected device, resulting in a DoS condition for client traffic that is traversing the device.

Affected products

Cisco ASA Software: from 9.6.0 through 9.6.4.40; from 9.8.0 through 9.8.4.17; from 9.9.0 through 9.9.2.66; from 9.10.0 through 9.10.1.37; from 9.12.0 through 9.12.3.7; from 9.13.0 through 9.13.1.7
Cisco Firepower Threat Defense Software: from 6.2.0 before 6.2.3.16; from 6.3.0 before 6.3.0.6; from 6.4.0 before 6.4.0.9; from 6.5.0 before 6.5.0.5 — fixed in 6.2.3.16, 6.3.0.6, 6.4.0.9, 6.5.0.5

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Cisco Firepower Threat Defense Software 6.2.3.16, 6.3.0.6, 6.4.0.9, 6.5.0.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2020-3298 or the next vulnerability affects your stack