Cisco email security boxes can be rooted by... an email
Cisco says there are no workarounds, so patching is the only fix.The bug lies in how Cisco's AsyncOS software handles incoming email. An attacker doesn't need to log in: they can send a booby-trapped message through a vulnerable gateway and, if the exploit works, run commands as root. REG AD googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('labrador/thereg/article/desktop/b'); }); Which is not exactly what you want from the box tasked with keeping nasty emails out.
- ▪Cisco says there are no workarounds, so patching is the only fix.The bug lies in how Cisco's AsyncOS software handles incoming email.
- ▪An attacker doesn't need to log in: they can send a booby-trapped message through a vulnerable gateway and, if the exploit works, run commands as root.
- ▪REG AD googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('labrador/thereg/article/desktop/b'); }); Which is not exactly what you want from the box tasked with keeping nasty emails out.
The Register publishes from United Kingdom and files mainly under tech. We currently carry 563 of its stories.
Story provenance
Source · retrieval · rights · ranking — open for full record
inspect →
Story provenance
Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.
Record
| Original publisher | The Register |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/09/15/cisco-email-security-boxes-can-be-rooted-by-an-email/5296604 |
| Publication time | Tue, 15 Sep 2026 18:01:00 +0200 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-15T16:01:52.546Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-15T16:01:52.546Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 6y9kdp41-S7X · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
(function() { let windowUrl = window.location.href; windowUrl = windowUrl.substring(windowUrl.indexOf('?') + 1); let messageElement = document.querySelector('.shareableMessage'); if (windowUrl && windowUrl.includes('code') && windowUrl.includes('expires')) { messageElement.style.display = 'block'; } })(); security Cisco email security boxes can be rooted by... an email Attackers already exploiting the critical flaw, and Cisco warns they may be able to cover their tracks once they're in Carly Page Carly Page Published tue 15 Sep 2026 // 17:01 UTC READ MORE Nightwing CEO has a Labor Day message for staff – and apparently The Register 8 days ago Cloud snail-mail service Docmail enters third day stuck in the outbox 11 days ago Cisco searched for IOS XR bugs and found so many it rolled them…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Register.
Discussion
0 commentsMore from The Register
