What is CVE-2026-76461?
A vulnerability in the email parsing of Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Secure Email Gateway could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on the underlying operating system. This vulnerability is due to insufficient validation in the email parsing logic. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted email message that contains malicious SQL statements through an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary SQL statements, leading to command execution with root privileges on the underlying operating system.
The record classifies CVE-2026-76461 under weakness class CWE-89. Its CVSS v3 base vector states that the flaw is reachable remotely over the network, needs no prior authentication, needs no user interaction, and has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability. 1 affected-product entry is recorded, across 1 vendor, listed below. The identifier was first published 53 days ago.
Severity and exploitation probability
- CVSS v3.1 base score
- 9.8 — CRITICAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H - EPSS (FIRST)
- 2.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 81.2% of all scored CVEs
- CISA KEV
- Listed since 2026-09-14, federal remediation deadline 2026-09-17
- Threadlinqs priority
- 9/10 — CISA KEV-listed, which Threadlinqs floors at 9
- Published
- 2026-09-14, last modified 2026-09-15
Is CVE-2026-76461 being exploited?
CISA added CVE-2026-76461 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2026-09-14, which means the agency holds evidence of exploitation in the wild; US federal civilian agencies had to remediate it by 2026-09-17 under BOD 22-01. Weaponised exploit code for CVE-2026-76461 is publicly available. 3 public proof-of-concept repositories are tracked for this identifier. It currently carries a trending score of 78 in the Threadlinqs vulnerability feed.
- 0xBlackash/CVE-2026-76461 (github)
- HORKimhab/CVE-2026-76461 (github)
- fevar54/CVE-2026-76461-Detection-Kit- (github)
Affected products and versions
- Cisco: Secure Email
How to fix CVE-2026-76461
Vendor advisory: https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-esa-inj-2bLVGmhX. Because CVE-2026-76461 is KEV-listed, US federal civilian agencies were required to apply the vendor fix, or stop using the product, by 2026-09-17. Apply the vendor fix referenced above to every affected product listed in this record, then confirm the running version against the vendor advisory.
Threat activity tracking CVE-2026-76461
3 tracked threats in the Threadlinqs corpus reference CVE-2026-76461, either in the campaign’s CVE list or as an indicator on the campaign record.
- Metasploit 6.5.9 Wrapup: Public Exploit Modules for Citrix NetScaler (CVE-2026-88771), Cisco Secure Email Gateway (CVE-2026-76461/76443), GitLab CI/CD Regex RCE (CVE-2026-97229), OpenBullet2, Flowise, SPIP and WordPress Bug Library — CRITICAL · 2026-11-06
- Cisco Secure Email Gateway AMP Relative Path Traversal Zero-Day (CVE-2026-76519) Exploited for Root Command Execution — CRITICAL · 2026-10-14
- CISA Adds Actively Exploited Cisco Secure Email Gateway SQL Injection (CVE-2026-76461) to KEV Catalog — CRITICAL · 2026-09-14
Sources
Enriched from CVE.org, NVD, FIRST EPSS, CISA KEV, GitHub Security Advisories, public proof-of-concept repositories. Last verified by Threadlinqs on . This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.