CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-1561 — Cisco Secure Email And Web Manager security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.5

A vulnerability in the spam quarantine feature of Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager, formerly Cisco Security Management Appliance (SMA), could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to gain unauthorized access and modify the spam quarantine settings of another user. This vulnerability exists because access to the spam quarantine feature is not properly restricted. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending malicious requests to an affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to modify another user's spam quarantine settings, possibly disabling security controls or viewing email messages stored on the spam quarantine interfaces.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (2.0)
Published
2021-08-18
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
operating-system
Weaknesses
CWE-302, CWE-287

Affected products

  • cisco / secure_email_and_web_manager

Matched remediation archetype

Authentication bypass and missing authentication

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Check exposure

  • Map every affected endpoint and protocol path, including alternate ports, legacy routes, recovery flows, service accounts, and machine-to-machine access.
  • Confirm which deployments enable the affected authentication mode and whether the interface is reachable from untrusted networks.
  • Review session, token, credential, and proxy trust configuration without attempting account takeover.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and centralize fail-closed authentication before protected request handling.
  • Remove default or embedded credentials, rotate affected secrets and sessions, and bind authentication decisions to the intended audience and channel.
  • Add negative tests for alternate routes, malformed or absent credentials, recovery flows, and proxy-derived identity.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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