CVE-2020-12271: Sophos SFOS SQL Injection Vulnerability

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities

Name

Sophos SFOS SQL Injection Vulnerability

Vendor

Sophos

Product

SFOS

Added to the catalog

2021-11-03

Due date for US federal agencies

2022-05-03

Weaknesses

CWE-89

Catalog version

2026.10.30

Sophos Firewall operating system (SFOS) firmware contains a SQL injection vulnerability when configured with either the administration (HTTPS) service or the User Portal is exposed on the WAN zone. Successful exploitation may cause remote code execution to exfiltrate usernames and hashed passwords for the local device admin(s), portal admins, and user accounts used for remote access (but not external Active Directory or LDAP passwords).

Required action (CISA)

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Ransomware use: CISA marks this vulnerability as known to be used in ransomware campaigns. CISA does not say which group used it.

Links in CISA's notes

• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-12271

Read on 2026-11-02T23:39:54.475Z under licence cisa-kev-cc0@b0067899 from https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/feeds/known_exploited_vulnerabilities.json

NVD analysis

Status

Analyzed

Published

2020-04-27T04:15:10.553

Last modified

2026-06-17T02:51:32.573

Weaknesses

CWE-89

A SQL injection issue was found in SFOS 17.0, 17.1, 17.5, and 18.0 before 2020-04-25 on Sophos XG Firewall devices, as exploited in the wild in April 2020. This affected devices configured with either the administration (HTTPS) service or the User Portal exposed on the WAN zone. A successful attack may have caused remote code execution that exfiltrated usernames and hashed passwords for the local device admin(s), portal admins, and user accounts used for remote access (but not external Active Directory or LDAP passwords)

References

• https://community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/135412 (Vendor Advisory)
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/89.html (Third Party Advisory)
• https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2020/04/26/asnarok/ (Exploit, Vendor Advisory)
• https://community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/135412 (Vendor Advisory)
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/89.html (Third Party Advisory)
• https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2020/04/26/asnarok/ (Exploit, Vendor Advisory)
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2020-12271 (US Government Resource)

This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.

Read on 2026-11-02T23:41:51.476Z under licence nvd-api-terms-of-use@ff2a5288 from https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?cveId=CVE-2020-12271

CVE record

Assigner

mitre

State

PUBLISHED

Published

2020-04-27T04:00:01.000Z

Updated

2025-10-21T23:35:45.408Z

Problem types

n/a

A SQL injection issue was found in SFOS 17.0, 17.1, 17.5, and 18.0 before 2020-04-25 on Sophos XG Firewall devices, as exploited in the wild in April 2020. This affected devices configured with either the administration (HTTPS) service or the User Portal exposed on the WAN zone. A successful attack may have caused remote code execution that exfiltrated usernames and hashed passwords for the local device admin(s), portal admins, and user accounts used for remote access (but not external Active Directory or LDAP passwords)

References

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/89.html
• https://community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/135412
• https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2020/04/26/asnarok/

Read on 2026-11-03T01:03:20.496Z under licence cve-terms-of-use@81bfa2f3 from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/main/cves/2020/12xxx/CVE-2020-12271.json

Defensive techniques (MITRE D3FEND)

D3FEND maps these defensive techniques to the weakness (CWE) that NVD lists for this CVE, through the digital artifacts the weakness affects. D3FEND does not say they stop this vulnerability.

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