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Fencer Intel
medium 5.3

CVE-2020-3164 json

Cisco ESA, Cisco WSA, and Cisco SMA GUI Denial of Service Vulnerability

published 6y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2020-24435

cvss
5.3
version 3.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.3%
EPSS 1.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 70%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A vulnerability in the web-based management interface of Cisco AsyncOS for Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA), Cisco Web Security Appliance (WSA), and Cisco Content Security Management Appliance (SMA) could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to cause high CPU usage on an affected device, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to improper validation of specific HTTP request headers. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malformed HTTP request to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to trigger a prolonged status of high CPU utilization relative to the GUI process(es). Upon successful exploitation of this vulnerability, an affected device will still be operative, but its response time and overall performance may be degraded.

Patch / fix

  • cisco content_security_management_appliance 13.6.0

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
last yr.

Exploit prediction

1.28% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 70% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.0 5.3 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
NVD 3.1 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Affected products

  • Cisco Cisco Web Security Appliance (WSA)

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.