CVE-2020-3410
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedA vulnerability in the Common Access Card (CAC) authentication feature of Cisco Firepower Management Center (FMC) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and access the FMC system. The attacker must have a valid CAC to initiate the access attempt. The vulnerability is due to incorrect session invalidation during CAC authentication. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by performing a CAC-based authentication attempt to an affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to access an affected system with the privileges of a CAC-authenticated user who is currently logged in.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceA vulnerability in Cisco Firepower Management Center's Common Access Card (CAC) authentication allows an unauthenticated remote attacker with a valid CAC to bypass authentication due to incorrect session invalidation logic, potentially gaining the privileges of any currently logged-in CAC user.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 6.6.0= 6.6.0.1CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- High
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Verify Cisco Firepower Management Center versionLog into the FMC web interface and navigate to Help > About, or run 'show version' via CLI to confirm the installed versionAffected if Version is exactly 6.6.0 or 6.6.0.1
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Confirm CAC authentication is enabledIn FMC web UI, navigate to System > Users > Authentication or System > Configuration > Security > CAC and verify if Common Access Card authentication method is configured and activeAffected if CAC authentication method is enabled and in use on the FMC
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Check for active CAC-authenticated sessionsIn FMC web UI, go to System > Users > Sessions or use the CLI command 'show user-session' to list currently logged-in users and their authentication methodAffected if Any users are actively logged in via CAC authentication at the time of inspection
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Review authentication logs for session anomaliesIn FMC, navigate to Analysis > Connections > Events or System > Logging > Audit Logs and search for authentication events, particularly looking for sessions that may not have properly terminatedAffected if Audit logs show unexpected session behavior or sessions that remain active after apparent logout for CAC users
Your FMC is affected only if it runs version 6.6.0 or 6.6.0.1 AND CAC authentication is enabled and in use, allowing an attacker with a valid CAC to potentially hijack existing sessions.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataApply the Cisco patch for CVE-2020-3410 when available; until then, consider network segmentation, enhanced monitoring of FMC authentication events, and limiting CAC-authenticated sessions.
- Consultation8.0 h
- Implementation12.0 h
- Testing12.0 h
- Review / QA6.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-3410 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2020-3410 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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