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CVE-2023-20009

24
FAUCET Score

CVE-2023-20009 is a privilege escalation vulnerability affecting Cisco Secure Email Gateway (ESA) and Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager (SMA). An authenticated remote or local attacker with operator-level privileges can exploit this flaw by uploading a specially crafted SNMP configuration file, leading to root access on the device. With a CVSS score of 7.2 (HIGH), this vulnerability allows for complete compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. While not currently listed in CISA's KEV catalog and lacking public exploit code, it has garnered some community discussion and media attention, indicating awareness within the cybersecurity landscape.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
< 12.5.3-041CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:cisco:email_security_appliance:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
>= 13.0.0, < 13.0.5-007CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:cisco:email_security_appliance:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
>= 13.5.0, < 13.5.4-038CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:cisco:email_security_appliance:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
>= 14.0.0, < 14.2.1-020CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:cisco:email_security_appliance:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
>= 14.3.0, < 14.3.0-032CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:cisco:email_security_appliance:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.1

6.5MEDIUM

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
HIGH
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
HIGH
Availability Impact
NONE
Exploitability Score
1.2
Impact Score
5.2
CvssVersion
3.1

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
1.26%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
66.6%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-28
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0126 is in the 57th percentile among its peer group of 5,538 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.1 Mastodon, and 0.3 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.1 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Vendor Patches (1)

ciscovendor investigatingvia nvd_reference
View patch

References

sec.cloudapps.cisco.com / security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-esa-sma-privesc-9DVkFpJ8
Vendor Advisory