Critical Pre-Auth RCE Vulnerability CVE-2026-118633 Affects All Sophos UTM Versions, Manual Patch Required After EOL

Sophos has disclosed a critical remote code execution vulnerability in its legacy Sophos UTM security gateway product. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-118633, carries a CVSSv4.0 base score of 9.2 and is rated Critical. It allows unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary commands as root by triggering a race condition through repeated attacks against the email proxy when scanning is enabled. Although the product reached end-of-life, Sophos released a manual patch that users must apply themselves because automatic updates are no longer available. The company urges immediate patching for any deployments still using the email protection feature and recommends migration to the supported Sophos Firewall. The issue was reported through Sophos’s bug bounty program by an external researcher.

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Sophos UTM contains a critical remote code execution vulnerability that permits unauthenticated attackers to run arbitrary commands with root privileges.

The flaw, identified as CVE-2026-118633, was detailed in a security advisory published by Sophos on 28 October 2026. It affects the email proxy component when the scanning function is enabled. Attackers can exploit a path traversal issue combined with a processing race condition by sending repeated requests over several minutes, ultimately bypassing authentication.

The vulnerability received a CVSSv4.0 base score of 9.2 and is classified as Critical, the highest severity rating. Every version of Sophos UTM is impacted.

Although Sophos UTM has reached end-of-life, the vendor prepared a corrective patch. Because support has ended, the patch is not delivered automatically and must be installed manually by administrators. Sophos strongly recommends applying the patch without delay for any installations that still use the email protection feature.

In parallel, the company encourages organizations to migrate to the actively supported Sophos Firewall product line.

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