A vulnerability in the email message filtering feature of Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA) and Cisco Content Security Management Appliance (SMA) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause repeated crashes in some internal processes that are running on the affected devices, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to insufficient input validation of email attachments. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending an email message with a crafted attachment through an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause specific processes to crash repeatedly, resulting in the complete unavailability of both the Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) and message tracking features and in severe performance degradation while processing email. After the affected processes restart, the software resumes filtering for the same attachment, causing the affected processes to crash and restart again. A successful exploit could also allow the attacker to cause a repeated DoS condition. Manual intervention may be required to recover from this situation.
This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.3, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction and does not require pre-existing privileges . The vulnerability impacts and limited availability for affected systems. Impacting 3 products from cisco, from cisco, from cisco organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.
Reported in 2020, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.
2020-09-23T01:15:14.613
2024-11-21T04:37:49.387
Modified
CVSSv3.1: 5.3 (MEDIUM)
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C
10.0
6.9
| Type | Vendor | Product | Version/Range | Vulnerable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Application | cisco | content_security_management_appliance | 11.4.0-812 | Yes |
| Operating System | cisco | asyncos | < 11.0.1-161 | Yes |
| Operating System | cisco | asyncos | ≤ 12.5.0-633 | Yes |
| Application | cisco | email_security_appliance | 11.0.1-hp5-602 | Yes |
| Application | cisco | email_security_appliance | 11.1.0-404 | Yes |
| Operating System | cisco | asyncos | < 11.0.3-251 | Yes |
| Operating System | cisco | asyncos | < 12.5.0-059 | Yes |
SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For cisco's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.