Threats / Sophos / CVE-2022-1040
CVE-2022-1040
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-08-04
Sophos Firewall vulnerability
An authentication bypass vulnerability in Sophos Firewall User Portal and Webadmin enables remote code execution without valid credentials.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
This vulnerability allows unauthenticated attackers to bypass security controls and execute arbitrary code on affected Sophos Firewall appliances. Active exploitation in the wild indicates immediate risk to organizations running vulnerable versions.
CISA KEV Yes · 2022-03-315EPSS 0.99796 (verify live)6Exploit Weaponized · public PoC7CVSS 9.83CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Impact: total4
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreExploit available
Fully weaponized — public exploit code is cataloged for this vulnerability.We link the existence of the exploit; we do not host or redistribute payloads.
Reported exploitation
32 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 2022-03-31).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.99796 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 9.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) · Affected: Sophos, Firewall. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CNA-assigned (CVE.org), version 3.1, set at disclosure.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-158 CWE-158.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 6 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.
Public exploit available
Public exploit tooling is catalogued for this CVE (a public proof-of-concept / detection template). Catalog entries: nuclei template. We link the catalog page(s) only — no payload or code is hosted or restated here.Link, never host — the catalog page is the source; basicsecurity.net does not redistribute payloads.
WeaknessCWE-158 · CWE-158
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 identify the Sophos Firewall User Portal or Webadmin interface exposed on the network.
Business
Perimeter security appliances become direct attack targets rather than protective barriers.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I craft requests that bypass authentication mechanisms to access restricted functions.
Business
Administrative access controls fail to prevent unauthorized operations on critical infrastructure.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I execute arbitrary code on the firewall appliance with the privileges of the web service.
Business
Attackers gain control of the organization's network gateway, enabling lateral movement and data exfiltration.
4
Data at risk — exfiltration narrative 4
Attacker
I establish persistence and pivot to internal network segments behind the compromised firewall.
Business
Internal systems and sensitive data become accessible to external threat actors through a trusted security device.
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