Content Security Management ApplianceApplication · Cisco
CVE-2019-1983
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedA vulnerability in the email message filtering feature of Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA) and Cisco Content Security Management Appliance (SMA) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause repeated crashes in some internal processes that are running on the affected devices, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to insufficient input validation of email attachments. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending an email message with a crafted attachment through an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause specific processes to crash repeatedly, resulting in the complete unavailability of both the Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) and message tracking features and in severe performance degradation while processing email. After the affected processes restart, the software resumes filtering for the same attachment, causing the affected processes to crash and restart again. A successful exploit could also allow the attacker to cause a repeated DoS condition. Manual intervention may be required to recover from this situation.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceA vulnerability in Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA) and Content Security Management Appliance (SMA) allows unauthenticated remote attackers to crash internal email filtering processes by sending emails with specially crafted attachments. The insufficient input validation causes processes to crash repeatedly, making Cisco AMP and message tracking unavailable and requiring manual intervention to recover.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
Content Security Management ApplianceApplication
= 11.4.0-812
AsyncosOperating system
< 11.0.1-161>= 12.0, <= 12.5.0-633< 11.0.3-251>= 12.0, < 12.5.0-059
Email Security ApplianceApplication
= 11.0.1-hp5-602= 11.1.0-404CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- Low
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify your Cisco appliance typeDetermine if the appliance is an Email Security Appliance (ESA) or Content Security Management Appliance (SMA) from your product documentation or web interfaceAffected if The device is either an ESA or SMA model
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Check the installed AsyncOS versionLog into the CLI and run the 'version' command, or check the version via the web interface under System Administration > Software UpdatesAffected if The version is < 11.0.1-161, or >= 12.0 and <= 12.5.0-633, or < 11.0.3-251, or >= 12.0 and < 12.5.0-059
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Confirm email processing is enabledVerify that inbound/outbound email processing and attachment scanning are active in the ESA configuration (Policy > Inbound/Outbound Mail Policies)Affected if Email processing and attachment filtering are enabled on the appliance
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Check for service degradation symptomsReview the message tracking dashboard and AMP (Advanced Malware Protection) status via the web interface or CLI command 'ampstatus'; look for reports of unavailable tracking or AMP servicesAffected if Cisco AMP or message tracking features are unavailable or reporting repeated failures
Your environment is affected if you are running an ESA or SMA with an AsyncOS version matching the specified ranges and you have email processing with attachment scanning enabled.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor data11.0.1-16111.0.3-25112.5.0-059
Apply Cisco's available software updates/patches for CVE-2019-1983 to fix the input validation issue; consider implementing temporary attachment filtering rules or quarantine policies as a workaround until patches can be deployed.
Fix this in Content Security Management Appliance
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation3.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,800.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2019-1983 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2019-1983 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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