CVE-2022-20798· NVD / CVE Program· CNA cisco

Cisco Email Security Appliance and Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager External Authentication Bypass Vulnerability

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Monitor (action score 39/100)

The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 1.5% (FIRST EPSS); higher than 74.6% of all records.
Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it. No account or password is required. No user action is required. No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
According to CISA the attack is automatable: targets can be found by mass scanning.
According to the record, no fixed version is available yet.
Mentioned 2 times in Turkish national cyber security advisories (siberguvenlik.gov.tr).

Low priority for now. Update when a fix is released; follow the vendor's advisory.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

A vulnerability in the external authentication functionality of Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager, formerly known as Cisco Security Management Appliance (SMA), and Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and log in to the web management interface of an affected device. This vulnerability is due to improper authentication checks when an affected device uses Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) for external authentication. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by entering a specific input on the login page of the affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to gain unauthorized access to the web-based management interface of the affected device.

CriticalCVSS 9.8 · v3.1—No exploit No fix recorded

BDU:2022-03520

Published: Jun 15, 2022
Updated: Jun 17, 2026
EPSS: 1.5% · 74th percentile
CWE: CWE-287

Report tools

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Action score

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS: 39 / 40 · 9.8 / 10
CISA KEV: 0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS: 0 / 30 · 1.5%

CISA SSVC decision

Exploitation: none
Automatable: yes
Technical impact: total

Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.

CNA vs NVD score

NVD: 9.8
CNA · cisco: 9.8; agree

The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.

Get told when this record changes

Not in KEV: no record of exploitation in the wild
No public exploit code on record
No fixed version yet

If any of these changes, we'll tell you in the daily email digest.

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Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

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Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

Vendor	Product	CPE
cisco	email security appliance	cpe:2.3:a:cisco:email_security_appliance
cisco	secure email and web manager	cpe:2.3:a:cisco:secure_email_and_web_manager

Affected versions

NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.

cisco email security appliance14.0 and later · before 14.0.1-033
cisco email security appliance7.1.5
cisco secure email and web manager13.0 and later · before 13.0.0-277
cisco secure email and web manager13.6 and later · before 13.6.2-090
cisco secure email and web manager13.8 and later · before 13.8.1-090
cisco secure email and web manager14.0 and later · before 14.0.0-418
cisco secure email and web manager14.1 and later · before 14.1.0-250

Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (cisco). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

Cisco Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA)
- n/aaffected

Same product

cisco: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

CVE-2019-1947Cisco Email Security Appliance Denial of Service Vulnerability
35Monitor
CVE-2015-6291Cisco AsyncOS before 8.5.7-043, 9.x before 9.1.1-023, and 9.5.x and 9.6.x before 9.6.0-046 on Email Security Appliance (ESA) devices mishand
32Monitor
CVE-2018-0419A vulnerability in certain attachment detection mechanisms of Cisco Email Security Appliances (ESA) could allow an unauthenticated, remote a
31Monitor

Published before and after this one in the same product

← EarlierCVE-2021-1566Jun 16, 2021 · Cisco Email Security Appliance and Cisco Web Security Appliance Certificate Validation Vulnerability
29Monitor
← EarlierCVE-2022-20664Jun 15, 2022 · Cisco Email Security Appliance and Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager Information Disclosure Vulnerability
30Monitor
Later →CVE-2022-20960Nov 4, 2022 · A vulnerability in Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA) could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to cause a
30Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

No fix version is recorded for this entry. Check the references for vendor advisories.

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

No dated events beyond publication.

EPSS, last 120 days

FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

No commit or PR link among the references.

Credits

All researchers

Finders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.

No credits in the CNA record.

Variant candidates

Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.

No nightly-computed relations.

Chain candidates

An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.

—

Bug bounty scope

No known public program.

Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).

National notice (Türkiye Cybersecurity Directorate / USOM)

Official security notices citing this record; remediation advice is on the agency's page.

TR-22-0434 · Jun 17, 2022(Cisco Güvenlik Güncellemesi)
TR-22-0428 · Jun 16, 2022(Cisco Güvenlik Zafiyeti)

All national notices →

Technical details

Attack conditions

Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
No account or password is required.
No user action is required.
No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.

If successful

Confidentiality: high · data can be read
Integrity: high · data or configuration can be modified
Availability: high · the service can be disrupted

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: None
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality impact: High
Integrity impact: High
Availability impact: High

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-287 · Improper Authentication

CVSS vector

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

nvd-primary

Root cause

Authentication is added route by route instead of being enforced in one place. When a route added later bypasses the shared middleware, the session check never runs for it.

The bug in code

The whole CWE-287 class

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

Vulnerable

1app.use("/admin", requireSession, adminRouter);
2

3// Route added later skips the middleware
4app.post("/admin-api/config", updateConfig);

Fixed

1const admin = express.Router();
2admin.use(requireSession, requireRole("admin"));
3

4admin.post("/config", updateConfig);
5app.use("/admin", admin);

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

Attack patterns (CAPEC)

ATT&CK techniques

Change log

No changes recorded on tracked fields yet. Score, KEV, exploit maturity and fix status changes appear here.

References

tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-sma-esa-auth-bypass-66kEcxQD

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

All records