Cisco Email Security Appliance and Cisco Content Security Management Appliance Denial of Service Vulnerability
Published Sep 23, 2020
5.3
MEDIUMCVSS 3.1
EPSS 1.86%
Description
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.
Affected products
Default status is the baseline for the product, each version can override it (e.g. patched versions marked unaffected).
| Vendor | Product | Default status | Versions | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cisco | Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA) | n/a |
|
Configuration 1
Configuration 2
- 11.0.1-hp5-602
- 11.1.0-404
- < 11.0.3-251
- ≥ 12.0 · < 12.5.0-059
No data.
No Red Hat product state for this CVE.
No package ranges for this CVE.
Remediation
No remediation recorded yet.
Metrics
No CVSS v4.0 score for this CVE.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C
This CVE is not in the KEV list.
CISA SSVC (Vulnrichment)
Stakeholder-Specific Vulnerability Categorization from CISA ADP.
Exploitation
NoneAutomatable
YesTechnical Impact
PartialDecision
n/aAssessed Nov 13, 2024 · SSVC 2.0.3
Estimated probability of exploitation in the wild in the next 30 days (FIRST EPSS). As of Oct 1, 2026.
Score over time
2021–2026- EPSS v1
- EPSS v5
- EPSS v2
- EPSS v3
Percentile over time
- EPSS v1
- EPSS v5
- EPSS v2
- EPSS v3
Table of values (12 key points)
Flat stretches are collapsed; showing up to 120 newest points.
| Date | Score | Percentile | Model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1, 2026 | 1.86% (0.01863) | 78.50th | v5 (v2026.06.15) |
| Jun 15, 2026 | 1.84% (0.01841) | 76.14th | v5 (v2026.06.15) |
| Jul 20, 2024 | 0.15% (0.00150) | 51.65th | v3 (v2023.03.01) |
| Sep 3, 2023 | 0.15% (0.00147) | 49.98th | v3 (v2023.03.01) |
| Mar 7, 2023 | 0.13% (0.00127) | 45.55th | v3 (v2023.03.01) |
| Mar 6, 2023 | 1.05% (0.01055) | 52.13th | v2 (v2022.01.01) |
| Apr 1, 2022 | 1.05% (0.01055) | 48.43th | v2 (v2022.01.01) |
| Feb 4, 2022 | 4.50% (0.04499) | 74.08th | v2 (v2022.01.01) |
| Feb 3, 2022 | 2.86% (0.02857) | 63.60th | v5 (v2026.06.15) |
| Jan 6, 2022 | 2.86% (0.02857) | 63.25th | v1 |
| Sep 1, 2021 | 0.65% (0.00651) | 45.91th | v1 |
| Apr 14, 2021 | 0.65% (0.00651) | 0.00th | v1 |
References (1)
- https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20200219-esa-sma-dos vendor-advisoryx_refsource_CISCOVendor Advisory
| Link | Providers | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20200219-esa-sma-dos | vendor-advisoryx_refsource_CISCOVendor Advisory |
Change history (0)
No recorded changes yet.