CVE-2022-20653
Cisco Email Security Appliance DNS Verification Denial of Service Vulnerability
- Published
- Updated
- Reserved
- Assigned by
- cisco
Description
A vulnerability in the DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE) email verification component of Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to insufficient error handling in DNS name resolution by the affected software. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending specially formatted email messages that are processed by an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the device to become unreachable from management interfaces or to process additional email messages for a period of time until the device recovers, resulting in a DoS condition. Continued attacks could cause the device to become completely unavailable, resulting in a persistent DoS condition.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| ciscoCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 1.8% · top 21% of all CVEs (7 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: High 7.5.
Weakness
Affected products
Cisco · Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA)
- affected n/a
What to do
Exploitation: The Cisco PSIRT is not aware of any public announcements or malicious use of the vulnerability that is described in this advisory.
References (1)
- 20220217 Cisco Email Security Appliance DNS Verification 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-2022-20653)Record last updated .