Skip to main content
Meet us at Black Hat USA 2026— Las Vegas, August 1–6Book a Meeting
Mallory
Back to vulnerabilities
HighPublic exploit

Unauthenticated RCE in WatchGuard Firebox IKE Service

IdentifiersCVE-2025-32978CWE-78

CVE-2025-32978 is a critical remote code execution vulnerability in WatchGuard Firebox firewalls affecting the Fireware OS Internet Key Exchange (IKE) service. According to the provided content, the flaw allows unauthenticated remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands on vulnerable devices. The issue affects deployments using IKEv2, including mobile user VPN and branch office VPN configurations with dynamic gateway peers; the content also notes that some devices may remain vulnerable even after certain VPN configurations were deleted, depending on remaining static gateway peer configurations. The vulnerability has been reported as actively exploited in the wild.

Share:
For your environment

Are you exposed to this one?

Mallory correlates every CVE against your assets, your vendors, and active adversary campaigns. Know which vulnerabilities matter for you, not just which ones are loud.

Start free trial
ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.

Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Successful exploitation allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the firewall and potentially take full control of the device. Given the role of Firebox as a perimeter security appliance, compromise can enable loss of integrity and availability of the firewall itself, interception or manipulation of network traffic, disabling of security controls, persistence on a highly privileged edge device, and use of the appliance as a foothold for further intrusion into the protected environment.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

If immediate patching is not possible, implement WatchGuard's temporary workaround referenced in the provided content. In addition, reduce exposure of the vulnerable IKE service wherever operationally feasible, especially on internet-reachable devices, and monitor for the published indicators of compromise until remediation is complete. Because the content indicates active exploitation, organizations should assume elevated risk for exposed vulnerable appliances.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Apply the WatchGuard firmware updates that fully address CVE-2025-32978. Because the vulnerability is under active exploitation, patching should be treated as urgent. Validate that all affected Firebox devices are updated, including systems with current or historical IKEv2-based VPN configurations, and review WatchGuard-provided indicators of compromise to determine whether exploitation has already occurred.
PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

No public exploits tracked yet. Mallory keeps watching.

VALID 0 / 0 TOTALView more in app

No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.

ACTIVITY FEED

Recent activity

11 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.

11 SOURCESView more in app
What this page doesn’t show

The version that knows your environment.

This page is what’s public. Mallory adds the parts that aren’t: which of your assets are affected, which adversaries are exploiting it right now, which detections to deploy, and what to do tonight.
Start free trial
Exposure mapping

Query your assets running an affected version, and investigate the blast radius.

Threat actor evidence

Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.

Associated malware

Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.

Detection signatures

YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.

Vendor-by-vendor mapping

Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.

Social activity9

Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.

EXTERNAL REFERENCES
MITRE CVE
cve.org · CVE-2025-32978
NVD
nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-32978
MITRE CWE · CWE-78
cwe.mitre.org
seclists.org
seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/Jun/25
seclists.org
seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/Jun/25
seralys.com
seralys.com/research/CVE-2025-32978.txt
support.quest.com
support.quest.com/kb/4379499/quest-response-to-kace-sma-vulnerabilities-cve-2025-32975-cve-2025-32976-cve-2025-32977-cve-2025-32978