Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2020-12271

A SQL injection issue was found in SFOS 17.0, 17.1, 17.5, and 18.0 before 2020-04-25 on Sophos XG Firewall devices, as exploited in the wild in April 2020. This affected devices configured with either the administration (HTTPS) service or the User Portal exposed on the WAN zone. A successful attack may have caused remote code execution that exfiltrated usernames and hashed passwords for the local device admin(s), portal admins, and user accounts used for remote access (but not external Active Directory or LDAP passwords)

Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a CRITICAL severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 9.8, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction and does not require pre-existing privileges . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), integrity (unauthorized modifications), and availability (service disruption) for affected systems. Impacting 2 products from sophos, from sophos organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

Reported in 2020, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.

Published

2020-04-27T04:15:10.553

Last Modified

2025-11-07T19:32:18.900

Status

Analyzed

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 9.8 (CRITICAL)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Access Vector: NETWORK
Access Complexity: LOW
Authentication: NONE
Confidentiality Impact: PARTIAL
Integrity Impact: PARTIAL
Availability Impact: PARTIAL

Exploitability Score

10.0

Impact Score

6.4

Weaknesses

Type: Primary
CWE-89
Type: Secondary
CWE-89

Affected Vendors & Products

Type	Vendor	Product	Version/Range	Vulnerable?
Operating System	sophos	sfos	17.0	Yes
Operating System	sophos	sfos	17.1	Yes
Operating System	sophos	sfos	17.5	Yes
Operating System	sophos	sfos	18.0	Yes
Hardware	sophos	xg_firewall	-	No

References

https://community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/135412 Vendor Advisory ([email protected])
https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/89.html Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2020/04/26/asnarok/ Exploit, Vendor Advisory ([email protected])
https://community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/135412 Vendor Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/89.html Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2020/04/26/asnarok/ Exploit, Vendor Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2020-12271 US Government Resource (134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0)

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For sophos's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.