Enterprise Chat And EmailApplication · Cisco
CVE-2025-20139
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 chat messaging features of Cisco Enterprise Chat and Email (ECE) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition. This vulnerability is due to improper validation of user-supplied input to chat entry points. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending malicious requests to a messaging chat entry point in the affected application. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the application to stop responding, resulting in a DoS condition. The application may not recover on its own and may need an administrator to manually restart services to recover.
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 · moderate confidenceCisco Enterprise Chat and Email (ECE) contains an input validation flaw in its chat messaging entry points. An unauthenticated remote attacker can send specially crafted requests to chat endpoints, causing the application to become unresponsive. The DoS condition persists until an administrator manually restarts services, indicating a failure in proper error handling or resource management.
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
Enterprise Chat And EmailApplication
< 12.6\(1\)es10CVSS 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
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
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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Determine if chat messaging endpoints are exposedReview your network configuration and firewall rules to identify whether ECE chat/messaging entry points are externally accessible or exposed to untrusted networks. Check reverse proxy or load balancer configurations for chat-related endpoints.Affected if Chat endpoints are accessible from untrusted networks without authentication filtering
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Identify the installed ECE versionAccess the ECE administration interface or use the appropriate CLI tool provided by Cisco to query the current software version. Compare the version string to the affected range (versions prior to 12.6(1)es10).Affected if The installed version is lower than 12.6(1)es10
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Verify the chat messaging feature is enabledReview ECE configuration settings to determine if the chat messaging component is currently active and processing requests. Check service status for chat-related modules.Affected if Chat messaging feature is enabled and processing requests
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Inspect for DoS indicators on chat servicesMonitor application logs and service health metrics for evidence of unresponsive chat services or abnormal request patterns targeting chat endpoints. Look for service restart requirements.Affected if Chat services have become unresponsive or require manual restart to recover
You are affected if ECE is running a version lower than 12.6(1)es10 with chat messaging endpoints accessible to unauthenticated users.
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.
dbcve · scoped12.6
Apply the vendor patch when available. In the interim, implement rate limiting on chat entry points and monitor for unusual request patterns to detect exploitation attempts. Ensure incident response procedures include the manual service restart procedure documented by Cisco.
12.6(1)es10
- 1. Review Cisco Enterprise Chat and Email (ECE) 12.6(1)es10 release notes and upgrade documentation for any prerequisites or special instructions
- 2. Create a complete backup of the current ECE configuration and database
- 3. Download the 12.6(1)es10 release from Cisco (requires valid Cisco service contract)
- 4. Follow Cisco's documented upgrade procedure for ECE, ensuring all prerequisites are met
- 5. Apply the upgrade to all affected ECE components
- 6. After upgrade completion, restart the ECE services as recommended in the upgrade guide
- 7. Verify the chat messaging functionality is working correctly
- 8. Confirm the application is responsive and no longer vulnerable to the malicious request DoS condition
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Fix this in Enterprise Chat And Email
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation8.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing8.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $6,784.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-20139 — 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-2025-20139 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
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data