Description
A vulnerability in the Web UI and administrative CLI of the Cisco Secure Email Gateway (ESA) and Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager (SMA) could allow an authenticated remote attacker and or authenticated local attacker to escalate their privilege level and gain root access. The attacker has to have a valid user credential with at least a [[privilege of operator - validate actual name]].
The vulnerability is due to the processing of a specially crafted SNMP configuration file. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by authenticating to the targeted device and uploading a specially crafted SNMP configuration file that when uploaded could allow for the execution of commands as root. An exploit could allow the attacker to gain root access on the device.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cisco | Cisco Secure Email | 11.0.3-238, 11.1.0-069, 11.1.0-131, 11.1.0-128, 12.0.0-419, 12.1.0-071, 12.1.0-087, 12.1.0-089, 13.0.0-392, 13.5.1-277, 12.5.0-066, 14.0.0-698, 14.2.0-620 | — |
| Cisco | Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager | 11.0.0-115, 11.0.1-161, 11.5.1-105, 12.0.0-452, 12.0.1-011, 12.5.0-636, 12.5.0-658, 12.5.0-678, 12.5.0-670, 13.0.0-277, 13.6.2-078, 13.8.1-068, 13.8.1-074, 12.8.1-002, 14.0.0-404, 14.1.0-223, 14.1.0-227, 14.2.0-212 | — |
Public exploits
Exploit or proof-of-concept code for this vulnerability is publicly available, which lowers the bar for attackers. Treat it as a reason to patch sooner.
GitHub 1 repository
-
ly1g3/cisco-CVE-2023-20009 ★ 1 · Jul 7, 2026
Cisco Email Security Appliance: Remote Code Execution - RCE from config file
Sources: PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit Framework, Exploit-DB — updated daily. Only links are listed; no exploit code is hosted here.
Advisories 1
- WID-SEC-2023-0399 Cisco AsyncOS: Mehrere Schwachstellen BSI CERT-Bund (WID) · Feb 15, 2023