admin - WatchGuard fixes critical RCE flaw (CVE‑2025‑14733) in Firebox firewalls, which is actively being exploited in the wild
- CISA added it to KEV; federal agencies must patch or discontinue use by December 26
- Workarounds include disabling dynamic peer BOVPNs and tightening firewall policies until solutions are applied
WatchGuard has patched a critical severity zero-day vulnerability in its Firebox firewalls and urged all users to apply the fix immediately.
In a new security advisory, the company said that firewalls running Fireware OS 11.x and later, 12.x and later, and 2025.1 through (and including) 2025.1.3 contain an out-of-bounds write vulnerability that could allow unauthenticated attackers to remotely execute arbitrary code (RCE). This vulnerability affects both the mobile user VPN using IKEv2 and the branch VPN using IKEv2 when configured with a dynamic gateway peer.
The flaw is now tracked as CVE-2025-14733 and has been given a severity rating of 9.3/10 (critical). WatchGuard said it has been “actively trying to exploit” threat actors in the wild, but did not discuss which groups used it, or against whom.
CISA adds the bug to KEV
Those who cannot implement the fix immediately can work around the issue by disabling dynamic peer BOVPNs, adding new firewall policies, and disabling the default system policies that handle VPN traffic.
At the same time, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added the RCE flaw to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, giving all Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies just a one-week deadline to fix or completely shut down vulnerable Firebox firewalls.
The entry was added on December 19th, with a due date of December 26th.
A few months ago, WatchGuard patched a similar RCE bug in its Firebox firewalls, BleepingComputer reported. In October 2025, internet watchdog Shadowserver said there were more than 75,000 exposed instances, the majority of which were in North America and Europe. This vulnerability was also added to CISA’s KEV a few weeks later.
WatchGuard Technologies is a global cybersecurity company serving more than 250,000 customers in small and medium-sized businesses, MSPs and other organizations worldwide.
Via BleepingComputer
The best antivirus for every budget
Follow TechRadar on Google News And add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews and opinions in your feeds. Then be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course that is also possible follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form and receive regular updates from us WhatsApp at.
