Unified Contact Center ExpressApplication · Cisco
CVE-2023-20232
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 Tomcat implementation for Cisco Unified Contact Center Express (Unified CCX) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a web cache poisoning attack on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to improper input validation of HTTP requests. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted HTTP requests to a specific API endpoint on the Unified CCX Finesse Portal. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the internal WebProxy to redirect users to an attacker-controlled host.
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 analysisThe application accepts input without confirming it is well-formed or within expected bounds, so malformed data can push the program into states its author never anticipated. Attackers probe these gaps to trigger crashes, bypass logic, or feed tainted values into more dangerous operations downstream. Remediating it well means validating and normalising every input at the boundary against a strict allow-list — not merely filtering known-bad values.
General guidance for the improper input validation class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
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
Unified Contact Center ExpressApplication
< 12.5\(1\)_su2_es05CVSS 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
- Low
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
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.
dbcve · scoped12.5
12.5(1)_su2_es05 or later
- 1. Review the Cisco Security Advisory at https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-uccx-wcp-JJeqDT3S for complete upgrade instructions
- 2. Back up the current Unified CCX configuration and data
- 3. Download the Cisco Unified CCX 12.5(1) SU2 ES05 or later release from the Cisco Software Download center
- 4. Follow Cisco's standard upgrade procedure for Unified CCX, which typically requires accessing the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Administration interface
- 5. Apply the upgrade during a planned maintenance window
- 6. After upgrade, verify that the Finesse Portal is accessible and functioning normally
- 7. Validate that HTTP requests are no longer being improperly validated in a way that allows cache poisoning
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-20232 — 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-2023-20232 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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