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Threats / SonicWall / CVE-2025-40602
CVE-2025-40602 · EUVD no mirror located · GCVE no mirror located Verified 2026-08-04

SonicWall SMA1000 appliance vulnerability

SonicWall SMA1000 appliance contains a missing authorization vulnerability enabling privilege escalation in the appliance management console, allowing unauthorized administrative access.

Verdict

Today item — known-exploited.

A missing authorization flaw in SonicWall SMA1000 permits unauthenticated or low-privileged users to escalate privileges within the management console. Active exploitation in the wild indicates immediate risk to affected deployments.

CISA KEV Yes · 2025-12-175EPSS 0.01944 (verify live)6CVSS 6.6 (CISA)4CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: total4
01

Is it exploitable?

— the evidence, ranked above the score
Reported exploitation
11 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
arcticwolf.com ↗psirt.global.sonicwall.c ↗cisa.gov ↗recordedfuture.com ↗Confirmed
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2025-12-17).
CISA KEV ↗Confirmed
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.01944 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
FIRST EPSS ↗High
Severity / affected
CVSS 6.6 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) · Affected: SonicWall, SMA1000 appliance. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CISA-assigned via the ADP container (CVE.org), version 3.1; the CNA left no metrics, so CISA's own score is used ahead of NVD.
CISA-ADP ↗Reported
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-862 Missing Authorization, CWE-250 Excessive Privileges — weakness family: Authorization / access control.CWE — CNA-assigned (CVE.org); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CVE.org ↗Reported
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · 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.
CISA-ADP ↗Reported
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog the same day 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.
CISA KEV ↗CVE.org ↗Reported
WeaknessCWE-862 · Missing AuthorizationCWE-250 · Excessive PrivilegesAuthorization / access control
02

Who’s exploiting it?

— attribution turns risk into urgency
Attribution 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 board
1

Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1

Attacker
I identify the SMA1000 management console endpoint and probe for authorization enforcement gaps.
Business
Attackers gain direct access to appliance administration functions without proper credential validation.
2

Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2

Attacker
I escalate my privileges by bypassing authorization checks to assume administrative role.
Business
Full control of the security appliance is compromised, enabling configuration tampering and policy bypass.
3

Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3

Attacker
I modify firewall rules, disable logging, or extract sensitive network traffic data.
Business
Network perimeter security is neutralized; attackers gain visibility into protected infrastructure and can pivot deeper into the organization.
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

Coverage & confidence

— what we know, and what we don’t

Established (cited)

  • KEV listing (CISA)
  • EPSS probability (FIRST)
  • 11 reported-exploitation source(s)
  • CVSS 6.6 — CISA-assigned (CVE.org ADP)
  • CISA SSVC triage disposition (CVE.org ADP)
  • CWE weakness mapping — CNA-assigned (CVE.org)
  • Catalogued by sonicwall (CNA)
  • Named finder/reporter credit (CVE.org)

    • Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden

  • No EUVD / GCVE mirror in feed — single-authority dependency for the identifier.
  • EPSS & exposure are time-varying; verify live at the source.
  • Threat-actor attribution not established from feed data — absence of a name is not absence of compromise.
    • Disclosure & credit2
    Catalogued by sonicwallCNA
    Credited with finding itClément Lecigne and Zander Work of Google Threat Intelligence Groupreporter