Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2020-3195 is a denial-of-service risk in Cisco ASA and Firepower Threat Defense OSPF processing. A remote unauthenticated attacker could make an affected device leak memory until it reloads. The business impact is potential firewall or security appliance outage, not data theft.
Executive priority
Treat as high priority for environments relying on Cisco ASA or FTD for perimeter or segmentation availability, especially where OSPF is enabled. The main risk is service interruption from device reload.
Technical view
The issue is incorrect handling of certain OSPF packets, leading to uncontrolled memory consumption on affected Cisco ASA and FTD software. CVSS v3.0 is 8.6 with network attack vector, low complexity, no privileges, no user interaction, and high availability impact.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most relevant where Cisco ASA or FTD devices process OSPF packets from reachable networks. The bundle does not provide affected version ranges, so inventory and Cisco advisory validation are required.
Exploitation context
The source bundle describes remote unauthenticated exploitation by crafted OSPF packet series causing memory leak and reload. It does not cite public exploitation, and KEV status is false.
Researcher notes
Evidence supports availability-only impact through CWE-400 resource consumption. The provided bundle lacks version ranges, fixed releases, workaround details, and exploit-in-the-wild evidence; do not infer them without Cisco advisory review.
Mitigation direction
- Check Cisco advisory for affected releases, fixed software, and any workarounds.
- Prioritize upgrades or mitigations for ASA/FTD devices running OSPF.
- Restrict OSPF packet processing to trusted routing neighbors where supported.
- Monitor memory growth and unexpected reloads on exposed security appliances.
Validation and detection
- Inventory Cisco ASA and FTD devices and identify OSPF usage.
- Compare software releases against Cisco advisory guidance.
- Review logs and telemetry for memory exhaustion or device reload events.
- Confirm OSPF adjacency exposure is limited to expected trusted peers.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-400: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2020-3195 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- High
- CVSS
- 8.6 (3.0)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H3.94Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.0 score
8.6HighVector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- 20200506 Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software and Firepower Threat Defense Software OSPF Packets Processing Memory Leak VulnerabilityCVE reference · vendor-advisory, x_refsource_CISCO
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.