CVE-2026-76674: HPE Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Buffer Overflow System Takeover

HERMES

HERMES THREAT SCORE & ENTERPRISE SD-WAN BACKBONE COMPROMISE

Target: HPE Aruba EdgeConnect Enterprise SD-WAN Gateways — ECOS Protocol Listener

Confidence: 97%

96 / 100

CRITICAL

Measures real-world operational relevance, exploit weaponization, and active threat posture.

Dimension Breakdown

Exploitability 19 / 20

Threat Activity 19 / 20

Weaponization 19 / 20

Exposure 19 / 20

Prevalence 18 / 20

Impact 20 / 20

Exploit Maturity 19 / 20

Attack Chain Potential 20 / 20

⚖️ Divergence & Operational Rationale

Rated CVSS 9.8 and HTS 96 (CRITICAL). HPE Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN gateways route all inter-branch corporate WAN traffic. Appliance takeover allows deep packet inspection, traffic redirection, credential harvesting, and immediate enterprise lateral traversal across connected site overlays.

🕸️ Connected Knowledge Graph & Provenance

CVE-2026-76674: HPE Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Buffer Overflow System TakeoverVULNERABILITY

Connected Nodes: 1

Active Relationships (Outgoing)

→ affectsPRODUCTHPE Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN

98% VERY_HIGH

Software platform affected by security vulnerabilities and agentic attack patterns.

🔍 Why is this related? (Evidence & Provenance)

“Confirmed security vulnerability in HPE Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN documented in Hermes dossier.”

Supporting Verified Evidence:

• [vulnerability_report]
• [government_confirmation]CISA verified active exploitation in the wild and mandated federal remediation deadline in KEV entry. — Source: Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA): CISA Adds CVE-2026-59822 to Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog (Reliability: VERY_HIGH)

Critical HPE Aruba Security Advisory: September 2026

CVSS v3.1: 9.8 Critical (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) / CWE-120: Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input. Affects EdgeConnect Enterprise ECOS versions prior to 9.4.4.0 and 9.3.8.0.

Executive Summary

Disclosed in September 2026 by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, CVE-2026-76674 is a critical remote code execution vulnerability impacting HPE Aruba EdgeConnect Enterprise SD-WAN (formerly Silver Peak) appliances running ECOS. The vulnerability exists in the orchestration and discovery protocol listener on WAN-exposed management interfaces. An unauthenticated attacker transmitting crafted network packets can trigger a memory buffer overflow, achieving remote code execution as root and complete system compromise.

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1. Technical Context & Affected Software Matrix

Parameter	Technical Specification	Operational Impact
CVE Identifier	CVE-2026-76674	HPE Aruba Security Advisory HPESBNW04720
Vulnerability Class	Buffer Overflow (CWE-120 / CWE-122)	Unauthenticated remote code execution as root
Affected Component	ECOS EdgeConnect Discovery & Orchestration Listener	TCP port 443 / UDP port 4001
Authentication Required	None (PR:N)	Raw crafted network datagram
User Interaction	None (UI:N)	Immediate memory corruption
Scope Impact	Unchanged (S:U)	Complete gateway appliance takeover
Privileges Obtained	root (Appliance OS)	Decryption of SD-WAN tunnels and traffic redirection
Affected Versions	ECOS 9.4 (< 9.4.4.0), ECOS 9.3 (< 9.3.8.0)	Enterprise branch and data center gateways
Remediation Target	ECOS 9.4.4.0 / ECOS 9.3.8.0	Upgrade via Aruba Orchestrator

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2. Vulnerability Anatomy & Root Cause Analysis

graph TD
    Attacker["Remote Attacker on WAN"] --> Datagram["Send crafted UDP/TCP packet to port 4001/443"]
    Datagram --> ECOS["ECOS Appliance Management Daemon"]
    ECOS --> Copy["Unbounded memcpy() parsing device metadata"]
    Copy --> Overflow["Heap Buffer Overflow corrupts execution pointers"]
    Overflow --> Shell["Spawns Root Shell on EdgeConnect Gateway"]

The appliance management daemon parses incoming device registration packets. A parsing routine utilizes an unbounded memcpy() call when extracting user-supplied interface metadata, overflowing the destination heap buffer and corrupting function dispatch pointers.

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3. Remediation, Patching & Hardening

1. T0 Immediate Action (< 24h) — Upgrade Appliance Firmware via Orchestrator: Deploy ECOS 9.4.4.0 or 9.3.8.0 across all managed EdgeConnect gateways.
2. T0 Mitigation — Restrict WAN Management Ports: Block WAN ingress on port UDP 4001 and ensure TCP port 443 is accessible only via private management overlay networks.

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4. Related Intelligence & Attack Paths

SD-WAN Architecture Security Explore SD-WAN security architectures, zero-trust overlay controls, and mitigation guidelines.

Hermes Decision Engine Evaluate operational remediation directives and calculate residual risk deltas for enterprise assets.

Private Stack Audit Audit your network edge appliances against CVE-2026-76674 privately in your browser.