# CVE-2020-3132: Cisco Email Security Appliance Shortened URL Denial of Service Vulnerability

> An unauthenticated remote attacker can cause a temporary denial of service on Cisco Email Security Appliances by sending emails with many shortened URLs.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.8 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 19 Feb 2020
- **Updated:** 15 Nov 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-xhcj-87mg-4cx4

## What is CVE-2020-3132?

CVE-2020-3132 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Email Security Appliance, published on 19 Feb 2020. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability in the email message scanning feature of Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a temporary denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to inadequate parsing mechanisms for specific email body components. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malicious email containing a high number of shortened URLs through an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to consume processing resources, causing a DoS condition on an affected device. To successfully exploit this vulnerability, certain conditions beyond the control of the attacker must occur.

Weakness: CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-3132?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Cisco Cloud Email Security, Cisco Email Security Appliance.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-3132?

No fix has been published for CVE-2020-3132 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2020-3132 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-3132 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Email Security Appliance

- [CVE-2020-3164](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-3164/): Cisco ESA, Cisco WSA, and Cisco SMA GUI Denial of Service Vulnerability (medium 5.3)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-3132 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-3132 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Email Security Appliance, published on 19 Feb 2020. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-3132 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Email Security Appliance. 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-2020-3132/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-3132/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-3132
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-3132
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-3132

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-3132/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.