# CVE-2025-20153: Cisco ESA mail Bypass

> Unauthenticated attackers can bypass email filtering rules on Cisco Secure Email Gateway by sending crafted emails, allowing denied messages to pass through.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:N`)
- **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 2025
- **Updated:** 19 Feb 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-9ppw-7p8w-h9g2

## What is CVE-2025-20153?

CVE-2025-20153 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Cisco Secure Email, published on 19 Feb 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability in the email filtering mechanism of Cisco Secure Email Gateway could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass the configured rules and allow emails that should have been denied to flow through an affected device.  

This vulnerability is due to improper handling of email that passes through an affected device. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted email through the affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to bypass email filters on the affected device.

Weakness: CWE-284 (Improper Access Control)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-20153?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Cisco Secure Email Gateway.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-20153?

No fix has been published for CVE-2025-20153 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2025-20153 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-20153 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Secure Email

- [CVE-2024-20401](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-20401/): Path traversal in Cisco Secure Email (critical 9.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-20153 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-20153 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Cisco Secure Email, published on 19 Feb 2025. 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-2025-20153 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Secure Email. 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-2025-20153/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20153/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-20153
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-20153
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-20153

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20153/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.