Summary

On May 7, 2025, SonicWall and Rapid7 disclosed three vulnerabilities affecting SonicWall Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 100 Series appliances, including models 200, 210, 400, 410, and 500v. These vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2025-32819, CVE-2025-32820, and CVE-2025-32821, allow low-privileged authenticated SSLVPN users to escalate privileges and achieve root-level remote code execution (RCE) by chaining the flaws.

The vulnerabilities have been addressed in firmware version 10.2.1.15-81sv, and SonicWall strongly advises all customers to upgrade immediately. Notably, Rapid7 has observed indications that CVE-2025-32819 may have been exploited in the wild.

Affected Systems and Applications

Impacted Products:

• SonicWall SMA 100 Series: 200, 210, 400, 410, 500v (all hypervisors)

Affected Versions:

• 10.2.1.14-75sv and earlier

Fixed Version:

• 10.2.1.15-81sv and later

Technical Details / Attack Overview

The vulnerabilities can be exploited in a sequence:

1. CVE-2025-32819: An authenticated attacker with SSLVPN user privileges can delete arbitrary files on the SMA appliance as root, potentially leading to privilege escalation to the administrator account. This vulnerability has a CVSS score of 8.8.
2. CVE-2025-32820: Allows an authenticated SSLVPN user to bypass path traversal checks and delete arbitrary files, contributing to the attack chain. This vulnerability has a CVSS score of 8.3.
3. CVE-2025-32821: Enables an authenticated SSLVPN administrator to perform shell command injection, facilitating the execution of arbitrary commands on the system. This vulnerability has a CVSS score of 7.1.

By chaining these vulnerabilities, an attacker can escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code with root-level access on the affected SMA appliance.

Temporary Workarounds and Mitigations

Until the patch is applied, consider the following mitigations:

• Restrict Access: Limit access to the SMA web interface to trusted networks or VPNs.
• Enforce Strong Authentication: Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all administrative accounts.
• Monitor Logs: Regularly review logs for unusual activities, such as unexpected file deletions or privilege escalations.
• Network Segmentation: Isolate SMA appliances from critical network segments to limit potential lateral movement.

Note: These measures reduce risk but do not eliminate the vulnerability. Upgrading to the patched firmware version is the only complete remediation.

Detection Guidance

Security teams should implement the following detection strategies:

• Log Analysis: Monitor logs for signs of arbitrary file deletions or unauthorized privilege escalations.
• Anomalous Behavior: Detect unusual activities from SSLVPN user accounts, especially those involving administrative functions.
• Integrity Checks: Regularly verify the integrity of critical system files to detect unauthorized modifications. Consider deploying Canary Tokens to signal a potential intrusion or unauthorized access.

What the Cyber Fusion Center is Doing

The Cyber Fusion Center (CFC) is actively monitoring for exploitation attempts and evaluating threat intelligence for indicators of compromise (IOCs). Actions include:

• Vulnerability Scanning: Awaiting the release of detection plugins for tools like Tenable and Qualys.
  • https://www.tenable.com/cve/CVE-2025-32819
• Threat Hunting: The CFC is currently investigating if threat hunting rules can be deployed.

At this time, there is no confirmed public proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit, but the potential for exploitation underscores the urgency of applying the available patches.

References

• Rapid7 Blog: Multiple Vulnerabilities in SonicWall SMA 100 Series (FIXED)
• SonicWall Product Notice: SMA 100 Series – Multiple Vulnerabilities
• SonicWall PSIRT Advisory SNWLID-2025-0011
• NVD Entry for CVE-2025-32819
• NVD Entry for CVE-2025-32820
• NVD Entry for CVE-2025-32821

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