Cisco Secure FTD TLS1.3 Buffer Overflow Causing Device Reload (DoS)
CVE-2026-20135 Published on September 16, 2026

Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Software TLS 1.3 Denial of Service Vulnerability
A vulnerability in the TLS 1.3 implementation in Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause an affected device to reload unexpectedly, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. This vulnerability is due to improper buffer management during the TLS 1.3 connection. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted TLS 1.3 packet to an affected system through a TLS 1.3-enabled listening socket. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the LINA process to crash, which would cause the device to reload. The reload can happen before or after authentication of the connection.Note: TLS 1.3 connections include both data traffic and user-management traffic.

NVD

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2026-20135 can be exploited with network access, and does not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have no impact on confidentiality and integrity, and a high impact on availability.

Attack Vector:
NETWORK
Attack Complexity:
LOW
Privileges Required:
NONE
User Interaction:
NONE
Scope:
CHANGED
Confidentiality Impact:
NONE
Integrity Impact:
NONE
Availability Impact:
HIGH

Weakness Type

What is a Double-free Vulnerability?

The product calls free() twice on the same memory address, potentially leading to modification of unexpected memory locations. When a program calls free() twice with the same argument, the program's memory management data structures become corrupted. This corruption can cause the program to crash or, in some circumstances, cause two later calls to malloc() to return the same pointer. If malloc() returns the same value twice and the program later gives the attacker control over the data that is written into this doubly-allocated memory, the program becomes vulnerable to a buffer overflow attack.

CVE-2026-20135 has been classified to as a Double-free vulnerability or weakness.


Affected Versions

Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Software: