# CVE-2017-12215: Denial of service in Cisco Email Security Appliance

> Unauthenticated remote attackers can cause memory exhaustion and service disruption on Cisco Email Security Appliances by exploiting message filtering features.

- **Severity:** High 7.1 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 21 Sep 2017
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-wx6j-j2jv-h7c4

## What is CVE-2017-12215?

CVE-2017-12215 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Asyncos, published on 21 Sep 2017. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability in the email message filtering feature of Cisco AsyncOS Software for the Cisco Email Security Appliance could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause an affected device to run out of memory and stop scanning and forwarding email messages. When system memory is depleted, it can cause the filtering process to crash, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition on the device. This vulnerability affects software version 9.0 through the first fixed release of Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Email Security Appliances, both virtual and hardware appliances, if the software is configured to apply a message filter or content filter to incoming email attachments. The vulnerability is not limited to any specific rules or actions for a message filter or content filter. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCvd29354.

Weakness: CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-12215?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Cisco Asyncos.

## How do I fix CVE-2017-12215?

No fix has been published for CVE-2017-12215 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2017-12215 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-12215 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Asyncos

- [CVE-2025-20393](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20393/): Cisco Multiple Products Improper Input Validation (critical 10.0, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-76519](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-76519/): Cisco Secure Email Gateway Relative Path Traversal (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-76461](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-76461/): Cisco Secure Email Gateway SQL Injection (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2024-20435](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-20435/): Command injection in Cisco Secure Web Appliance (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2019-15956](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-15956/): Cisco Web Security Appliance Unauthorized Device Reset Vulnerability (high 8.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2017-12215 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2017-12215 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Asyncos, published on 21 Sep 2017. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-12215 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Asyncos. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-12215/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-12215/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-12215
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-12215
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2017-12215

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-12215/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.