What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2020-3433: Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client for Windows DLL Hijacking Vulnerability

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: yes — in CISA KEV since 2022-10-24
• EPSS: 10.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2020-08-17 · updated 2026-08-12
• Weakness: CWE-427

Description

A vulnerability in the interprocess communication (IPC) channel of Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client for Windows could allow an authenticated, local attacker to perform a DLL hijacking attack. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker would need to have valid credentials on the Windows system. The vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of resources that are loaded by the application at run time. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted IPC message to the AnyConnect process. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected machine with SYSTEM privileges. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker would need to have valid credentials on the Windows system.

Affected products

• Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client: before 4.9.00086 — fixed in 4.9.00086

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client 4.9.00086. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/159420/Cisco-AnyConnect-Privilege-Escalation.html
• https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-anyconnect-dll-F26WwJW
• http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/159420/Cisco-AnyConnect-Privilege-Escalation.html
• https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-anyconnect-dll-F26WwJW
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2020-3433

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