CVE-2017-12238
Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches VPLS Denial-of-Service Vulnerability
Does this matter?
Known to be exploited in the wild (CISA KEV, CISA remediation deadline 24 March 2022). Treat as an emergency change: patch or isolate now, then hunt for prior compromise.
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.
- CVSS 3.1
- 6.5 MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- EPSS
- 2.02% probability · 81th percentile
- Public exploits
- None in Exploit-DB
- CISA KEV
- Listed 3 March 2022 · due 24 March 2022
- Weakness
- CWE-399
- Affected
- cisco/ios
- Source
- psirt@cisco.com
EPSS 2.0% since 27 October 2026; no change recorded yet. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.
CISA notes
Apply updates per vendor instructions. https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-12238
References
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/101040Broken Link, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1039453Broken Link, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20170927-vplsVendor Advisory
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/101040Broken Link, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1039453Broken Link, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
- https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20170927-vplsVendor Advisory
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2017-12238US Government Resource
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.