Vulnerability report

Exploited in the wild Confirmed confidence In CISA KEV

CVE-2017-12238

Cisco IOS Denial of Service

Cisco IOS · Cisco IOS

Watch CVE-2017-12238 Browse KEV feed
Severity
CVSS 6.5 · Medium
Confidence
Confirmed
Exploit status
Exploited in the wild
EPSS
2.0%
First observed
—
Last observed
—

Decision summary

What security teams need to know first

Direct answers before the deeper technical record.

What it is

CVE-2017-12238 is an unauthenticated vulnerability affecting Cisco IOS. 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...

Is it exploited?

Yes. Previdian tracks this CVE as a known exploited vulnerability. Confidence is confirmed. Listed in CISA KEV.

Who is affected?

Cisco IOS cisco ios.

What should we do?

Prioritize remediation. Validate affected assets and apply vendor fixes on an accelerated timeline.

Overview

Cisco IOS Denial of Service

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.

n/a Affected
Cisco IOS
Cisco IOS
Published
28 Sep 2017
Exploitation Reported
03 Mar 2022
Attack vector
Adjacent
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None

Tags

ios edge cisa

CVE References

Exploitation evidence

Why Previdian marks this CVE as exploited

Third-party attestation and first-party sensor observation are shown separately so teams can judge the evidence chain.

Exploited in the wild

CISA

Recorded 03 Mar 2022

A trusted third party reported exploitation.

Known exploited vulnerability sources

Per-source evidence links for KEV attestations are available through the Previdian Pro API.

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Source Added
CISA First 2022-03-03 00:00 UTC

Detection

Operational artifacts and observed signals

Make the evidence actionable in scanner, SOC, and edge-control workflows.

Observed signals

Request targets
User-Agents
Callback hosts
0
0
0

Request targets and User-Agents available in Pro. Callback host details available in Enterprise.

Scanner coverage

No scanner integrations recorded yet.

Virtual patch status

No Previdian virtual patch is currently available. Future rules ship for ModSecurity, Cloudflare, and AWS WAF.

Learn about virtual patches →

No detection artifacts or sensor request patterns are available for this CVE yet.

Check back as sensor telemetry and scanner integrations are updated.

Risk and context

Severity, weaknesses, and research context

CVSS v3.1

6.5 Medium

Potential damage if exploited. Separate from whether attackers are using it.

CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS

2.0%

Estimated chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Previdian's warning comes from evidence, not this score.

Weaknesses

Resource Management Errors CWE-399

All CVSS Scores

CVSS v3.1 6.5 Medium

CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS v2.0 3.3 Low

AV:A/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Timeline

From disclosure to observed exploitation

  1. 00:00 UTC

    Added to CISA KEV

    Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

  2. 07:00 UTC

    CVE published

    Vulnerability disclosed publicly

  3. 00:00 UTC

    CVE ID reserved

    Identifier reserved by the CNA

Pro API

Automate this intelligence

Confidence, exploit status, sensor telemetry, PoCs, scanner integrations, mentions, and tags are available programmatically for VM, SOC, and CTI workflows.

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  • Evidence confidence and provenance
  • First-party sensor telemetry
  • PoC and scanner references
  • Affected versions and enrichment
  • Automation-ready JSON delivery

GET /api/v2/pro/kevs/CVE-2017-12238

Sample API response 
{
  "cve_id": "CVE-2017-12238",
  "confidence": "Confirmed",
  "cvss_score": 6.5,
  "cvss_estimated": false,
  "epss_score": 0.02017,
  "exploit_status": {
    "exploited_in_the_wild": true,
    "active_exploitation_observed": false
  },
  "sensor_telemetry": { "attempts": 0, "sensors": 0 }
}