Threats / Sophos / CVE-2020-12271
CVE-2020-12271
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-08-04
Sophos SFOS vulnerability
SQL injection in Sophos SFOS firmware when administration or User Portal services are exposed on WAN, enabling remote code execution and credential theft.
Verdict
Today item, not a backlog item.
A SQL injection vulnerability in Sophos SFOS allows unauthenticated remote attackers to execute arbitrary code and extract administrative credentials, local user accounts, and portal credentials when vulnerable services are internet-facing.
CISA KEV Yes · 2021-11-035Ransomware use Flagged5EPSS 0.42164 (verify live)6CVSS 103CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Impact: total4
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
14 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03), flagged for known ransomware use.
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.42164 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 10 (CVSS:3.0/AC:L/AV:N/A:H/C:H/I:H/PR:N/S:C/UI:N) · Affected: Sophos, SFOS. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CNA-assigned (CVE.org), version 3.0, set at disclosure.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-89 SQL Injection — weakness family: Injection.CWE assignment from the public NVD record (may be stale); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Technical Impact: totalCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 555 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I craft malicious SQL queries targeting the exposed HTTPS administration or User Portal interface to bypass authentication.
Business
Attackers gain unauthorized administrative access to the firewall, compromising the organization's network perimeter security.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I execute arbitrary code on the compromised firewall to establish persistence and lateral movement capabilities.
Business
The firewall becomes a pivot point for attackers to infiltrate internal networks and deploy ransomware or exfiltrate sensitive data.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I extract hashed passwords for device admins, portal admins, and remote access users stored in the firewall database.
Business
Credential compromise enables further unauthorized access to critical systems and increases exposure to ransomware deployment campaigns.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05