CVE-2017-12238

Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches: VPLS Denial-of-Service

As of , CVE-2017-12238 in Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches is on CISA's list of exploited vulnerabilities: CISA listed it on . Our patch-first group: Patch soon.

Exploited
Yes: CISA listed it on 3 March 2022
US federal deadline
24 March 202221 days after CISA listed it. US federal civilian agencies must fix it by then.
Used in ransomware campaigns
Not known to CISA
EPSS score
0.02Higher than 80% of the CVEs EPSS scores. EPSS estimates the chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days.
EPSS when listed
0.01 on 3 March 2022EPSS on the day CISA listed it.
Public exploit
None foundNeither Metasploit nor Exploit-DB lists one.
Fix
No vendor link in CISA's entry

What CISA says to do

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

CISA's required action

What the flaw is

A vulnerability in the Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) code of Cisco IOS for Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause a denial of service.

CISA's description

A vulnerability in the Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) code of Cisco IOS 15.0 through 15.4 for Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause a C6800-16P10G or C6800-16P10G-XL type line card to crash, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to a memory management issue in the affected software. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by creating a large number of VPLS-generated MAC entries in the MAC address table of an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a C6800-16P10G or C6800-16P10G-XL type line card to crash, resulting in a DoS condition. This vulnerability affects Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches that are running a vulnerable release of Cisco IOS Software and have a Cisco C6800-16P10G or C6800-16P10G-XL line card in use with Supervisor Engine 6T. To be vulnerable, the device must also be configured with VPLS and the C6800-16P10G or C6800-16P10G-XL line card needs to be the core-facing MPLS interfaces. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCva61927.

The CVE record's description, from cisco

CVE published
28 September 2017
Assigned by
cisco
CVSS
6.5 Medium (CVSS 3.1, from CISA-ADP)
CWE-399
Resource Management Errors
CISA SSVC, exploitation
active
CISA SSVC, automatable
no
CISA SSVC, technical impact
partial

Timeline

  1. The CVE record was published.
  2. CISA added it to its list of exploited vulnerabilities.
  3. The US federal deadline to fix it.

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