Exposed dangerous method or function in Email Security Gateway (ESG) - CVE-2023-7102
Published: December 27, 2023 / Updated: May 19, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU84794
CSH Severity: Critical
CVSS v4.0: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:A/U:Red
CVE-ID: CVE-2023-7102
CWE-ID: CWE-749
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability:
The vulnerability is being exploited in the wild
Vendor: Barracuda Networks
Affected software:
Email Security Gateway (ESG)
Email Security Gateway (ESG)
Detailed vulnerability description
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to compromise the affected system.
The vulnerability exists due to improper input validation within the third-party Perl library Spreadsheet::ParseExcel used to parse Excel files. A remote attacker can send a specially crafted email with a malicious file inside and execute arbitrary code on the device.
Note, the vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild.
How to mitigate CVE-2023-7102
On December 22, 2023, Barracuda deployed a patch to remediate
compromised ESG appliances which exhibited indicators of compromise
related to the newly identified malware variants.
Sources
- https://www.barracuda.com/company/legal/esg-vulnerability
- https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-7101
- https://metacpan.org/dist/Spreadsheet-ParseExcel
- https://github.com/haile01/perl_spreadsheet_excel_rce_poc
- https://github.com/jmcnamara/spreadsheet-parseexcel/blob/c7298592e102a375d43150cd002feed806557c15/lib/Spreadsheet/ParseExcel/Utility.pm#L171
- https://github.com/mandiant/Vulnerability-Disclosures/blob/master/2023/MNDT-2023-0019.md