CVE-2026-20290: SSL Cert Parsing In Snort 2 Engine Enables DoS Restart
CVE-2026-20290 Published on September 16, 2026

Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Software Snort 2 SSL/TLS Denial of Service Vulnerability
A vulnerability in SSL/TLS certificate parsing in the Snort 2 Detection Engine of Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause the Snort 2 Detection Engine to restart. This vulnerability is due to incomplete validation of the SSL certificate. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted SSL connection setup request to be parsed by Snort 2. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the Snort 2 Detection Engine to restart unexpectedly, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition.

NVD

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2026-20290 is exploitable 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 small 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:
LOW

Weakness Type

Buffer Access with Incorrect Length Value

The software uses a sequential operation to read or write a buffer, but it uses an incorrect length value that causes it to access memory that is outside of the bounds of the buffer. When the length value exceeds the size of the destination, a buffer overflow could occur.


Affected Versions

Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Software: