# CVE-2023-20259: Denial of service in Cisco Emergency Responder

> Unauthenticated remote attackers can cause high CPU utilization and denial of service in Cisco Unified Communications products via crafted HTTP requests.

- **Severity:** High 8.6 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/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:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 4 Oct 2023
- **Updated:** 2 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-x67r-8jfc-3r5m

## What is CVE-2023-20259?

CVE-2023-20259 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Unified Communications Manager, published on 4 Oct 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability in an API endpoint of multiple Cisco Unified Communications Products could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause high CPU utilization, which could impact access to the web-based management interface and cause delays with call processing. This API is not used for device management and is unlikely to be used in normal operations of the device.

 This vulnerability is due to improper API authentication and incomplete validation of the API request. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted HTTP request to a specific API on the device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition due to high CPU utilization, which could negatively impact user traffic and management access. When the attack stops, the device will recover without manual intervention.

Weakness: CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-20259?

It affects 5 products.


Products: Cisco Emergency Responder, Cisco Prime Collaboration Deployment, Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Im \& Presence Service, Cisco Unity Connection.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-20259?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-20259 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2023-20259 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-20259 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Unified Communications Manager

- [CVE-2008-1154](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-1154/): Auth bypass in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2023-20101](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-20101/): Hardcoded credentials in Cisco Emergency Responder (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2017-12337](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-12337/): Hardcoded credentials in Cisco Voice Operating System (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2016-6468](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-6468/): Cross-site request forgery in Cisco Emergency Responder (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2017-6779](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-6779/): Denial of service in Multiple Cisco Products unknown (high 7.5)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-20259 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-20259 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Unified Communications Manager, published on 4 Oct 2023. 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-2023-20259 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-2023-20259/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-20259/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-20259
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-20259
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-20259

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-20259/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.