# CVE-2023-44221 — SonicWall SMA100

**CISA KEV**

> As of 2025-10-21, CVE-2023-44221 is a HIGH-severity vulnerability in SonicWall SMA100, CVSS v3.1 7.2, EPSS 76.2% (99.5th percentile). It is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2025-05-01), with a US federal remediation deadline of 2025-05-22. Threadlinqs Intelligence links 1 tracked threat campaign to CVE-2023-44221, most recently “Coordinated Reconnaissance Campaign Maps SonicWall SSL VPN Attack Surface via Commercial Proxy Infrastructure (84,142 Sessions / 4,305 IPs / 20 ASNs)”.

**Last updated:** 2025-10-21

## What is CVE-2023-44221?

Improper neutralization of special elements in the SMA100 SSL-VPN management interface allows a remote authenticated attacker with administrative privilege to inject arbitrary commands as a 'nobody' user, potentially leading to OS Command Injection Vulnerability.

The record classifies CVE-2023-44221 under weakness class [CWE-78](https://intel.threadlinqs.com/cwe/CWE-78). Its CVSS v3 base vector states that the flaw is reachable remotely over the network, needs high-privilege credentials, needs no user interaction, and has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability. 1 affected-product entry is recorded, across 1 vendor, listed below. The identifier was first published 1047 days ago.

## Severity and exploitation probability

- **CVSS v3.1 base score:** 7.2 — HIGH (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **EPSS (FIRST):** 76.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99.5% of all scored CVEs
- **CISA KEV:** Listed since 2025-05-01, federal remediation deadline 2025-05-22
- **Threadlinqs priority:** 9/10 — CISA KEV-listed, which Threadlinqs floors at 9
- **Published:** 2023-12-05, last modified 2025-10-21

## Is CVE-2023-44221 being exploited?

CISA added CVE-2023-44221 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2025-05-01, which means the agency holds evidence of exploitation in the wild; US federal civilian agencies had to remediate it by 2025-05-22 under BOD 22-01. Weaponised exploit code for CVE-2023-44221 is publicly available. 1 public proof-of-concept repository is tracked for this identifier. It currently carries a trending score of 48 in the Threadlinqs vulnerability feed.

- [trickest/cve](https://github.com/trickest/cve/blob/main/2023/CVE-2023-44221.md) (trickest)

## Affected products and versions

- [SonicWall](https://intel.threadlinqs.com/vendors/sonicwall): SMA100

## How to fix CVE-2023-44221

Because CVE-2023-44221 is KEV-listed, US federal civilian agencies were required to apply the vendor fix, or stop using the product, by 2025-05-22. No vendor patch reference has been recorded for CVE-2023-44221 in the tracked sources. Follow the references below for a fix, and treat the products listed above as exposed until the vendor states otherwise.

## Threat activity tracking CVE-2023-44221

1 tracked threat in the Threadlinqs corpus references CVE-2023-44221, either in the campaign’s CVE list or as an indicator on the campaign record.

- [Coordinated Reconnaissance Campaign Maps SonicWall SSL VPN Attack Surface via Commercial Proxy Infrastructure (84,142 Sessions / 4,305 IPs / 20 ASNs)](https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-1468) — HIGH · 2026-02-25

## Sources

Enriched from CVE.org, FIRST EPSS, CISA KEV, GitHub Security Advisories, public proof-of-concept repositories. Last verified by Threadlinqs on 2026-10-10.

**Vendor advisory and patch**

- [psirt.global.sonicwall.com — vendor advisory](https://psirt.global.sonicwall.com/vuln-detail/SNWLID-2023-0018)

Canonical: https://intel.threadlinqs.com/cve/CVE-2023-44221
Full detection coverage and IOCs for threats exploiting CVE-2023-44221 via the Threadlinqs MCP server (Purple tier): https://intel.threadlinqs.com/mcp