Detecting CVE-2025-20393 exploitation: catching UAT-9686 on Cisco appliances
CVE-2025-20393 is a CVSS 10.0 Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaw in Cisco Secure Email Gateways currently being actively exploited by China-nexus groups. A recent advisory from Cisco Talos details how an actor dubbed “UAT-9686” is leveraging this vulnerability to target Cisco Secure Email Gateways (ESA) and Secure Email and Web Managers (SMA). The attack allows threat actors to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges and deploy persistence mechanisms.