# CVE-2023-20116: Denial of service in Cisco Unified Communications Manager

> An authenticated remote attacker can cause a denial of service on Cisco Unified Communications Manager by sending crafted HTTP input to the Self Care Portal.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 28 Jun 2023
- **Updated:** 2 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-4mm9-fmg4-q68j

## What is CVE-2023-20116?

CVE-2023-20116 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Unified Communications Manager, published on 28 Jun 2023. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

A vulnerability in the Administrative XML Web Service (AXL) API of Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM) and Cisco Unified Communications Manager Session Management Edition (Unified CM SME) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device.

 This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of user-supplied input to the web UI of the Self Care Portal. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted HTTP input to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a DoS condition on the affected device.

Weakness: CWE-835 (Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-20116?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-20116?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-20116 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2023-20116 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-20116 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Unified Communications Manager

- [CVE-2026-20230](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20230/): Cisco Unified Communications Manager Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) (high 8.6, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-20045](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20045/): Cisco Unified Communications Products Code Injection (high 8.2, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-20309](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20309/): Cisco Unified Communications Manager Static SSH Credentials Vulnerability (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2011-1643](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2011-1643/): Information disclosure in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2024-20253](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-20253/): Deserialization in Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise (critical 9.9)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-20116 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-20116 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Unified Communications Manager, published on 28 Jun 2023. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-20116 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Unified Communications Manager. 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-2023-20116/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-20116/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-20116
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-20116
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-20116

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-20116/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.