CVE-2020-3164
Cisco ESA, Cisco WSA, and Cisco SMA GUI Denial of Service Vulnerability
- Published
- Updated
- Reserved
- Assigned by
- cisco
Description
A vulnerability in the web-based management interface of Cisco AsyncOS for Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA), Cisco Web Security Appliance (WSA), and Cisco Content Security Management Appliance (SMA) could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to cause high CPU usage on an affected device, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to improper validation of specific HTTP request headers. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malformed HTTP request to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to trigger a prolonged status of high CPU utilization relative to the GUI process(es). Upon successful exploitation of this vulnerability, an affected device will still be operative, but its response time and overall performance may be degraded.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| ciscoCNA (assigner) | 3.0 | Medium5.3 | CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | Medium5.3 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 1.3% · top 30% of all CVEs (6 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 5.3.
Weakness
Affected products
Cisco · Cisco Web Security Appliance (WSA)
- affected unspecified – < n/a
What to do
Exploitation: The Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) is not aware of any public announcements or malicious use of the vulnerability that is described in this advisory.
References (1)
- 20200304 Cisco ESA, Cisco WSA, and Cisco SMA GUI Denial of Service Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_CISCOx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://trackcve.app/cve/CVE-2020-3164)Record last updated .