CVE-2023-20118CampaignPublished 23 May 2025

Cisco Small Business RV Series Routers · ViciousTrap · Infiltrate, Control, Lure: Turning edge devices into honeypots en masse.

Affects Cisco Small Business RV Series RoutersSource AlienVault OTX General

Authoritative record:CVE-2023-20118· Medium 6.5

Exploited in the wild · KEV due 24 Mar 2025 · 54% EPSS : block it and hunt for it in your logs now.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 22:58 UTC

CVSS base score

6.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

KEV deadline: 24 Mar 2025 US federal agencies must patch by this date; a sensible deadline for everyone else.
EPSS: 54.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 98% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

Exploitation evidence

t = 0 is the CVE’s publication on cve.org

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 5 Apr 2023
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: evidence found.
Listed in CISA KEV 1.9 years after disclosure
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

CVE published
on cve.org
2023-04-0516:05Z, t = 0
Added to CISA KEV (opens in a new tab)
exploitation confirmed
2025-03-03, 1.9 years after disclosure
KEV remediation due
US federal deadline
2025-03-24, 2.0 years after disclosure

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), CISA KEV (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-25.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
CiscoCisco Small Business RV Series Router Firmware	Affected =1.0.1.17 =1.0.2.03 =1.1.0.09 =1.1.1.19 =1.1.1.06 =1.2.1.13 =1.2.1.14 =1.3.1.12 =1.3.2.02 =1.3.1.10 =1.4.2.15 =1.4.2.17 =1.4.2.19 =1.4.2.20 =1.4.2.22 =1.5.1.05 =1.5.1.11 =1.5.1.13	Fixed in–

Description

The ViciousTrap campaign involves a threat actor compromising over 5,500 edge devices, including SOHO routers, SSL VPNs, DVRs, and BMC controllers, primarily end-of-life models. The attacker exploits CVE-2023-20118 to deploy a script named NetGhost, which redirects incoming traffic to attacker-controlled infrastructure, effectively turning these devices into distributed honeypots. The campaign has been active since March 2025 and targets more than 50 device brands, mainly across Asia, with infrastructure hosted in Malaysia. The actor appears to be collecting exploitation attempts and possibly zero-day vulnerabilities by observing traffic through these compromised devices. The campaign is linked to a medium severity threat with known exploitation in the wild.

Impact

The compromised devices are used as honeypots to redirect and collect incoming traffic, potentially allowing the attacker to observe exploitation attempts and gather intelligence on vulnerabilities, including zero-days. This can lead to increased risk for other systems if the collected exploits are weaponized. The devices themselves are controlled by the attacker, which may disrupt normal operations and expose network traffic to malicious interception. The campaign affects a large number of devices, increasing the scale of potential intelligence gathering and threat propagation.

Defensive guidance

Since the affected devices are mostly end-of-life, users should consider replacing or isolating these devices from critical networks. Monitor vendor advisories for official patches or mitigations for CVE-2023-20118. Network defenders should be aware of traffic redirection patterns consistent with NetGhost and consider blocking or monitoring suspicious outbound connections to known attacker infrastructure, particularly servers located in Malaysia. Given the nature of the campaign, traditional patching and device replacement are the primary mitigations.

CWE-77Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command ('Command Injection') (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #23OWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product constructs all or part of a command using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended command when it is sent to a downstream component.
Architecture and Design
If at all possible, use library calls rather than external processes to recreate the desired functionality.
Implementation
If possible, ensure that all external commands called from the program are statically created.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
SQL Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention in Java (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
LDAP Injection (opens in a new tab)
Command Delimiters (opens in a new tab)
IMAP/SMTP Command Injection (opens in a new tab)
Manipulating Writeable Terminal Devices (opens in a new tab)
Exploiting Multiple Input Interpretation Layers (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

Indicators of compromise

IP addresses 13

103.43.18.59
103.43.19.61
103.56.17.163
111.90.148.112
101.99.90.20
101.99.91.151
101.99.91.239
101.99.94.173
111.90.148.151
155.254.60.160

Hashes 3

c15f77d64b7bbfb37f00ece5a62095562b37dec4
20dff1120d968330c703aa485b3ea0ece45a227563ca0ffa395e4e59474dc6bd
d92d2f102e1e417894bd2920e477638edfae7f08d78aee605b1ba799507e3e77

CVEs 2

CVE-2021-32030
CVE-2023-20118

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

Timeline

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 25 Oct 2026, 22:58 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-77

MITRE ATT&CK techniques12 from threat tags

Technical details

Indicators of compromise

IP addresses 13

Hashes 3

CVEs 2

Community reviews

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