CriticalCVE-2019-7481

    SonicWall SMA100 SQL Injection Vulnerability (CVE-2019-7481)

    Published In CISA KEV since Sources: CVE.org

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    What is affected, what to do

    Vulnerability in SonicWall SMA100 allow unauthenticated user to gain read-only access to unauthorized resources. This vulnerablity impacted SMA100 version 9.0.0.3 and earlier.

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. CISA lists it as used in ransomware campaigns. The available sources name no fixed version. Check the vendor guidance in the references below. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

    Affected
    • SonicWall SMA100 eq 9.0.0.3 and earlier..9.0.0.3 and earlier

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    7.5

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: NVD, CVSS v3

    7.5

    CVSS v3

    Severity High on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: CVE.org

    99.91 %

    EPSS score

    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.97

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    Critical
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    242.45 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

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    actively exploited
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

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    7.5 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

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    7.5
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

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    99.91 %
    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

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    99.97
    Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

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    Actively exploited
    Published
    In CISA KEV since

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

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    CISA assessment (SSVC)
    Exploitation: active · automatable · Technical impact: partial
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 26 October 2021
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-89

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    This bug is network-reachable without authentication, trivial to exploit, and leaks sensitive appliance data such as account and session information — giving attackers a path to VPN access that looks entirely legitimate. CISA flags known ransomware campaign use, and its exploitation likelihood sits among the very highest of any CVE; typical victims are organisations running internet-facing SSL VPNs, often mid-market firms and operators with ageing remote-access gear. Treat any exposed SMA 100 on 9.0.0.3 or earlier as critical and act now; assume credentials have already leaked even after patching, which makes credential rotation and MFA mandatory rather than nice-to-have.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Inventory and exposure check: Enumerate every SonicWall SMA 100 series appliance (SMA 200/210/400/410/500v), read the firmware version from the management UI, and flag internet-facing instances (TCP/443 user portal and management). Versions 9.0.0.3 and earlier are affected.
      • Upgrade firmware: Move to a release above 9.0.0.3, ideally the current supported SMA 100 firmware. Patch available from the vendor — look up the exact fixed version in the SonicWall advisory. Decommission or replace appliances stuck on unsupported firmware branches with no fix.
      • Treat credentials as compromised: The flaw gives unauthenticated read access to the appliance's backend database, so reset all local SMA accounts and any directory (AD/LDAP) accounts used through the device. Terminate all active sessions on the appliance.
      • Enforce MFA: Turn on multi-factor authentication for every SSL VPN/portal user (built-in TOTP or a RADIUS-backed second factor). Without MFA, harvested credentials translate directly into remote access to the internal network.
      • Kick off compromise assessment: Export appliance logs and VPN login history for the past months (before upgrading) and review for logins from unknown source IPs, odd hours or unexpected countries. Escalate any hits through your NIS2 incident-reporting process.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Network segmentation: Restrict the SMA management interface to a dedicated admin network; block internet access to management entirely. Place the VPN client pool in its own zone and permit only the internal services users actually need — no "any" access into server VLANs.
      • Perimeter access restriction: Where operationally feasible, narrow portal access with geo-IP filtering or an allowlist of partner/employee ranges; block known scanner and anonymiser networks.
      • WAF/IPS: Front the appliance with a WAF or IPS running SQL injection signatures (Suricata/ET rules for SonicWall SMA plus generic SQLi patterns such as UNION SELECT, ' OR '1'='1, SLEEP(, long hex-encoded strings) on HTTP requests to /cgi-bin/. TLS termination or inspection is required to see the payload.
      • IAM/least privilege: Bind the SMA to AD/LDAP with a low-privilege read-only service account, not a privileged group. Deny VPN access to domain admins; route privileged work through separate jump hosts.
      • Configuration hardening: Disable unused portal features (bookmarks, file shares, NetExtender for groups that don't need it), enable login rate limiting and account lockout, and forward syslog to the SIEM.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Web requests to the appliance (SMA syslog, reverse proxy or Zeek http.log): HTTP requests to /cgi-bin/ paths carrying SQL metacharacters or keywords in URI or body. Example SPL: index=perimeter dest=<SMA-IP> uri_path="/cgi-bin/*" | regex _raw="(?i)(union(\s|%20|\+)+select|sleep\(|benchmark\(|%27|0x[0-9a-f]{8,})".
      • IDS telemetry (Suricata/Snort): ET EXPLOIT/ET WEB_SPECIFIC_APPS alerts targeting the SMA IP; high request volume from a single source with widely varying response sizes suggests automated data extraction.
      • VPN login anomalies (SMA logs/RADIUS): Successful logins with no preceding failures from new source IPs/ASNs, the same account active from multiple countries at once (impossible travel), logins outside normal working hours.
      • Lateral movement from the VPN pool (Windows Security log): Event ID 4624 (logon type 3/10) and bursts of 4625 sourced from the SMA address pool, especially against domain controllers, file servers or backup systems. KQL: SecurityEvent | where EventID in (4624,4625) and IpAddress startswith "<VPN-pool-prefix>" | summarize count() by TargetUserName, Computer, bin(TimeGenerated,1h).
      • EDR process chains: On hosts reached from the VPN pool, watch for remote admin tooling (PsExec, wmic /node, RDP sessions followed by vssadmin delete shadows, bcdedit) — classic precursors to ransomware deployment.

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

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    Actively exploited: treat the vulnerability as a priority in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2. If it is exploited in your environment, check the reporting obligation under Art. 23 (early warning within 24 hours).
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    Since 11.09.2026, manufacturers of affected products with digital elements must report actively exploited vulnerabilities under Art. 14 CRA, with an early warning within 24 hours via ENISA's single reporting platform.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    Vulnerability in SonicWall SMA100 allow unauthenticated user to gain read-only access to unauthorized resources. This vulnerablity impacted SMA100 version 9.0.0.3 and earlier.

    Source: CISA KEV Catalog, cvelistv5, NVD (NIST)

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    SonicWallSMA100
    • 9.0.0.3 and earlier
    • —

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Othersonicwallsma_100_firmware—

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-89Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')

      Base

      The product constructs all or part of an SQL command using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended SQL command when it is sent to a downstream component. Without sufficient removal or quoting of SQL syntax in user-controllable inputs, the generated SQL query can cause those inputs to be interpreted as SQL instead of ordinary user data.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-89

    Public exploit references

    Publicly reported proof-of-concepts, exploit modules and detection templates for this vulnerability. NEOSEC links to the original sources only and does not provide any exploit code.

    Public exploit references
    CISA KEV CatalogCISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)cisa.govactively exploited

    References & sources

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