Threats / Barracuda Networks / CVE-2023-2868
CVE-2023-2868
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-08-04
Barracuda Networks Email Security Gateway (ESG) Appliance vulnerability
Barracuda Email Security Gateway appliance contains improper input validation in .tar file processing, enabling remote command injection attacks.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An unauthenticated attacker can exploit insufficient validation of user-supplied .tar files to inject and execute arbitrary commands on affected ESG appliances, with active exploitation confirmed in the wild.
CISA KEV Yes · 2023-05-265EPSS 0.87449 (verify live)6Exploit Weaponized · public PoC7CVSS 9.43CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Impact: total4
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreExploit available
Fully weaponized — public exploit code is cataloged for this vulnerability.We link the existence of the exploit; we do not host or redistribute payloads.
Reported exploitation
45 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-05-26).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.87449 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 9.4 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L) · Affected: Barracuda Networks, Email Security Gateway (ESG) Appliance. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CNA-assigned (CVE.org), version 3.1, set at disclosure.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-20 Improper Input Validation.CWE — CNA-assigned (CVE.org); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Technical Impact: totalCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 2 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
Public exploit available
Public exploit tooling is catalogued for this CVE (a functional/weaponized public exploit). Catalog entries: Metasploit module. We link the catalog page(s) only — no payload or code is hosted or restated here.Link, never host — the catalog page is the source; basicsecurity.net does not redistribute payloads.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I craft a malicious .tar file with embedded command injection payloads in file paths or metadata.
Business
Email security infrastructure becomes a direct attack vector for unauthorized code execution.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I upload or submit the crafted .tar file to the ESG appliance without authentication.
Business
Perimeter defenses fail to prevent exploitation of a critical security appliance.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I achieve remote command execution with the privileges of the ESG service process.
Business
Attacker gains foothold inside the network with access to email traffic and internal systems.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05