Cisco Secure Email vulnerability

A vulnerability in the email parsing of Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Secure Email Gateway could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on the underlying operating system. This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation in the email parsing logic. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted email message that contains malicious SQL statements through an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary SQL statements, leading to command execution with root privileges on the underlying operating system.

Published 14 Sep 2026Updated 15 Sep 20266 sources
CVSS 9.8 ✓ VERIFIED REFERENCE△ CISA KEV

What happened

A vulnerability in the email parsing of Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Secure Email Gateway could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on the underlying operating system. This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation in the email parsing logic. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted email message that contains malicious SQL statements through an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary SQL statements, leading to command execution with root privileges on the underlying operating system.

Affected versions

Cisco Secure Email: 14.0.0-698; 13.5.1-277; 13.0.0-392; 14.2.0-620; 13.0.5-007; 13.5.4-038; 14.2.1-020; 14.3.0-032; 15.0.0-104; 15.0.1-030; 15.5.0-048; 15.5.1-055; 15.5.2-018; 16.0.0-050; 15.0.3-002; 16.0.0-054; 15.5.3-022; 16.0.1-017; 15.5.4-012; 16.0.4-016; 15.0.5-016; 16.0.2-112; 16.0.3-044 Fixed: See vendor advisory.

Why it matters

Review the vendor advisory and exposure of the affected product to determine operational impact.

Detection & mitigation

  • Apply vendor-provided updates or mitigations.
  • Review affected product exposure and access logs.

Public PoC references