CVE-2022-20952

A vulnerability in the scanning engines of Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Secure Web Appliance, formerly known as Cisco Web Security Appliance (WSA), could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass a configured rule, thereby allowing traffic onto a network that should have been blocked. This vulnerability exists because malformed, encoded traffic is not properly detected. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by connecting through an affected device to a malicious server and receiving malformed HTTP responses. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to bypass an explicit block rule and receive traffic that should have been rejected by the device.

Published: 2023-03-01 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2022-20952 is rated Moderate Risk (40.3/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.34%). Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2022-20952

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-05-13 1.01% 0.34% -0.67%
2 2026-04-05 0.74% 1.01% +0.27%
3 2026-03-04 0.74%

Full EPSS history (12 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2022-20952

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
3.9 1.4 [email protected]
5.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
3.9 1.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2022-20952

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2022-20952

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
cisco asyncos >= 11.8, < 14.0.4 cpe:2.3:o:cisco:asyncos:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cisco asyncos 14.5.0 cpe:2.3:o:cisco:asyncos:14.5.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2022-20952

cvelogic Threat Intelligence