Vulnerability report

Exploited in the wild Confirmed confidence In CISA KEV

CVE-2023-2868

Remote Code injection in Barracuda Email Security Gateway

Barracuda Email Security Gateway · affected before 9.2.0.006

Watch CVE-2023-2868 Browse KEV feed
Severity
CVSS 9.4 · Critical
Confidence
Confirmed
Exploit status
Exploited in the wild
EPSS
86.8%
First observed
—
Last observed
—

Decision summary

What security teams need to know first

Direct answers before the deeper technical record.

What it is

CVE-2023-2868 is an unauthenticated Remote Code injection in Barracuda Email Security Gateway. A remote command injection vulnerability exists in the Barracuda Email Security Gateway (appliance form factor only)...

Is it exploited?

Yes. Previdian tracks this CVE as a known exploited vulnerability. Confidence is confirmed. Listed in CISA KEV. Also confirmed by third-party sources.

Who is affected?

Barracuda Email Security Gateway affected before 9.2.0.006.

What should we do?

Prioritize remediation. Validate affected assets and apply vendor fixes on an accelerated timeline.

Overview

Remote Code injection in Barracuda Email Security Gateway

A remote command injection vulnerability exists in the Barracuda Email Security Gateway (appliance form factor only) product effecting versions 5.1.3.001-9.2.0.006. The vulnerability arises out of a failure to comprehensively sanitize the processing of .tar file (tape archives). The vulnerability stems from incomplete input validation of a user-supplied .tar file as it pertains to the names of the files contained within the archive.

As a consequence, a remote attacker can specifically format these file names in a particular manner that will result in remotely executing a system command through Perl's qx operator with the privileges of the Email Security Gateway product. This issue was fixed as part of BNSF-36456 patch. This patch was automatically applied to all customer appliances.

Barracuda Affected
Barracuda Email Security Gateway
Before 9.2.0.006
Published
24 May 2023
Exploitation Reported
26 May 2023
Attack vector
Remote
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None

Tags

nessus_scanner cisa edge

CVE References

Exploitation evidence

Why Previdian marks this CVE as exploited

Third-party attestation and first-party sensor observation are shown separately so teams can judge the evidence chain.

Exploited in the wild

CISA

Recorded 26 May 2023

A trusted third party reported exploitation.

Known exploited vulnerability sources

Per-source evidence links for KEV attestations are available through the Previdian Pro API.

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Source Added
CISA First 2023-05-26 00:00 UTC
The Hacker News 2026-10-06 18:31 UTC

Detection

Operational artifacts and observed signals

Make the evidence actionable in scanner, SOC, and edge-control workflows.

Observed signals

Request targets
User-Agents
Callback hosts
0
0
0

Request targets and User-Agents available in Pro. Callback host details available in Enterprise.

Virtual patch status

No Previdian virtual patch is currently available. Future rules ship for ModSecurity, Cloudflare, and AWS WAF.

Learn about virtual patches →

Scanner Artifacts

Scanner and exploit-framework references linked to this CVE.

Scanner Reference Detected
Nessus https://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/177587 02 Jun 2025

Risk and context

Severity, weaknesses, and research context

CVSS v3.1

9.4 Critical

Potential damage if exploited. Separate from whether attackers are using it.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L

EPSS

86.8%

Estimated chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Previdian's warning comes from evidence, not this score.

Weaknesses

Improper Input Validation CWE-20 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command ('Command Injection') CWE-77

Recent mention · The Hacker News

Linux Backdoors Impersonate Email Security Tools to Evade Detection in Korea and Taiwan

Ravie LakshmananOct 06, 2026Cyber Espionage / Malware Linux backdoors targeting telecom and network appliances in South Korea and Taiwan have been disguising their traffic as email services and seemingly legitimate processes to blend in and evade detection. Threat actors are...

Read full advisory

Timeline

From disclosure to observed exploitation

  1. 18:31 UTC

    KEV confirmed by The Hacker News

    Exploitation attested by an external source

  2. 09:26 UTC

    Nessus plugin available

    Scanner coverage available

  3. 00:00 UTC

    Added to CISA KEV

    Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

  4. 18:00 UTC

    CVE published

    Vulnerability disclosed publicly

  5. 14:24 UTC

    CVE ID reserved

    Identifier reserved by the CNA

Pro API

Automate this intelligence

Confidence, exploit status, sensor telemetry, PoCs, scanner integrations, mentions, and tags are available programmatically for VM, SOC, and CTI workflows.

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  • Evidence confidence and provenance
  • First-party sensor telemetry
  • PoC and scanner references
  • Affected versions and enrichment
  • Automation-ready JSON delivery

GET /api/v2/pro/kevs/CVE-2023-2868

Sample API response 
{
  "cve_id": "CVE-2023-2868",
  "confidence": "Confirmed",
  "cvss_score": 9.4,
  "cvss_estimated": false,
  "epss_score": 0.86841,
  "exploit_status": {
    "exploited_in_the_wild": true,
    "active_exploitation_observed": false
  },
  "sensor_telemetry": { "attempts": 0, "sensors": 0 }
}