Cisco on microsegment.io

The Email Security Gateway Is Now An Attack Origin

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The system designed to inspect hostile email can itself become the first compromised workload.

That is the uncomfortable lesson from Cisco Secure Email Gateway CVE-2026-76461. Cisco says insufficient validation in AsyncOS email parsing allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to send a crafted message, execute arbitrary SQL statements, and reach command execution with root privileges on the underlying operating system.

Cisco published the critical advisory on September 14, 2026, assigned a CVSS score of 9.8, confirmed active exploitation, and provided fixed releases. There is no workaround. CISA added the vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, according to the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security advisory.

Voice Infrastructure Needs Containment, Too

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Voice infrastructure is easy to underestimate.

It sits in the background. It routes calls. It connects desk phones, softphones, contact centers, voicemail, emergency calling, directories, gateways, and collaboration workflows. It is operational plumbing, so it often gets treated as a specialist island.

That is the wrong mental model.

Unified communications platforms are not just voice systems. They are trust infrastructure.

The latest Cisco Unified Communications Manager issue is a useful reminder. CVE-2026-20230 affects Cisco Unified CM and Unified CM SME when the WebDialer service is enabled. Cisco published the advisory on June 3, 2026 and updated it on July 1, 2026 after becoming aware of active exploitation. NVD describes the issue as server-side request forgery through crafted HTTP requests that can allow file writes to the underlying operating system, which can then be used to elevate to root. CISA added the vulnerability to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on June 25, 2026 with a June 28 due date for covered federal agencies.

Deploying Cisco ACI and VMware NSX

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

One of my favourite networking podcasts, PacketPushers has a great episode on integrating Cisco ACI and VMware NSX at the same time.

I really enjoyed listening to this episode, one reason for sure was that Derek Wilson seems to be a really nice and knowledgeable person, but the other is that he shared some valuable insights into deploying ACI and its uses for big companies.

My key takeaways from the episode are: