Rapid7’s 2026 Global Cybersecurity Summit is now available on-demand.Watch sessions.
Rapid7

vulnerability

Cisco FTD: CVE-2025-20217: Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Software Snort 3 Denial of Service Vulnerability

Severity
8
CVSS
(AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C)
Published
Aug 14, 2025
Added
Aug 15, 2025
Modified
Mar 31, 2026

Description

A vulnerability in the packet inspection functionality of the Snort 3 Detection Engine of Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device.

This vulnerability is due to incorrect processing of traffic that is inspected by an affected device. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted traffic through the affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the affected device to enter an infinite loop while inspecting traffic, resulting in a DoS condition. The system watchdog will restart the Snort process automatically.

Solution

cisco-ftd-upgrade-latest
Title
Rapid7 Labs

2026 Global Threat Landscape Report

The predictive window has collapsed. Exploitation follows disclosure in days. See how attackers are accelerating and how to stay ahead.