CVE-2020-3442

DuoConnect SSH Connection Vulnerability

MEDIUM
5.7
CVSS Score
Published: July 20, 2020 at 08:45 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 03:18 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorDuoconnect

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Severity
MEDIUM5.7
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.2%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

The DuoConnect client enables users to establish SSH connections to hosts protected by a DNG instance. When a user initiates an SSH connection to a DNG-protected host for the first time using DuoConnect, the user’s browser is opened to a login screen in order to complete authentication determined by the contents of the '-relay' argument. If the ‘-relay’ is set to a URL beginning with "http://", then the browser will initially attempt to load the URL over an insecure HTTP connection, before being immediately redirected to HTTPS (in addition to standard redirect mechanisms, the DNG uses HTTP Strict Transport Security headers to enforce this). After successfully authenticating to a DNG, DuoConnect stores an authentication token in a local system cache, so users do not have to complete this browser-based authentication workflow for every subsequent SSH connection. These tokens are valid for a configurable period of time, which defaults to 8 hours. If a user running DuoConnect already has a valid token, then instead of opening a web browser, DuoConnect directly contacts the DNG, again using the configured '-relay' value, and sends this token, as well as the intended SSH server hostname and port numbers. If the '-relay' argument begins with "http://", then this request will be sent over an insecure connection, and could be exposed to an attacker who is sniffing the traffic on the same network. The DNG authentication tokens that may be exposed during SSH relay may be used to gain network-level access to the servers and ports protected by that given relay host. The DNG provides network-level access only to the protected SSH servers. It does not interact with the independent SSH authentication and encryption. An attacker cannot use a stolen token on its own to authenticate against a DNG-protected SSH server.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 1.1.1
Affected range stops below 1.1.1, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

Patch and advisory references

References (1)

Vendor Advisoryx_refsource_CISCOPatch
https://duo.com/labs/psa/duo-psa-2020-003

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
ADJACENT_NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
NONE
Availability
NONE
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-319

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