Resource exhaustion in Cisco Secure Email
CVE-2022-20960
A vulnerability in Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA) could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to improper handling of certain TLS connections that are processed by an affected device. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by establishing a large number of concurrent TLS connections to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the device to drop new TLS email messages that come from the associated email servers. Exploitation of this vulnerability does not cause the affected device to unexpectedly reload. The device will recover autonomously within a few hours of when the attack is halted or mitigated.
Vulnerability class: DoS (Denial of Service)
Published · last modified .
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
EPSS exploit prediction
EPSS: 0.008 (57.4th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 57th percentile — 57.4% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.008 · newest: 0.008 · change: +0.000
Affected products
- Cisco Secure Email — versions 11.0.3-238, 11.1.0-069, 11.1.0-131
- Cisco Email Security Appliance
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2022-20960?
- CVE-2022-20960 is a high-severity vulnerability in Cisco Secure Email, classified under Uncontrolled Resource Consumption. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2022-11-04.
- How severe is CVE-2022-20960?
- High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.