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Vulnerabilities

MediumKEV

CVE-2017-12238 — Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches VPLS Denial-of-Service Vulnerability

CVE-2017-12238 · Cisco IOS · CVSS 6.5 · KEV

In brief

Severity · CVSS
Medium6.5CVSS 3.1, Medium
EPSS
2%
CISA KEV
Known exploited, listed since 3 Mar 2022
CERT-FR
No advisory or alert referenced in the catalog
Vendor
Cisco
Published · Modified
·
Last verified

Summary

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.

Weakness: CWE-399

Title, description and the vendor's statements are quoted from the CVE record; a vendor's advisory is summarised in Patcharo's words, with a link.

Affected and fixed versions

Per product and release branch, as the vendor's CVE record and official advisory state them. A fixed release is shown only when a document names it: the vendor's, or CERT-FR's for Check Point, with its source.

Cisco IOS

Source: CVE-2017-12238cisco-sa-20170927-vpls

  1. —
    Affected versionsCisco IOS
    First fixed releaseNot published in the sources followed

The vendor states fixes are available; the releases per branch are in its advisory.

Remediation

Fix available

Vendor fix

Cisco has released updates that fix this vulnerability; its advisory lists them.

SourceCisco Security Advisory cisco-sa-20170927-vpls· revised 27 Sept 2017

Workarounds (vendor)

Cisco states in its advisory that no workaround is available.

SourceCisco Security Advisory cisco-sa-20170927-vpls

CISA KEV required action

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

CISA due date:

SourceCISA KEV

Last verified 1 Oct 2026 at 09:31 UTC

Known exploitation

Added to CISA KEV on 3 Mar 2022

Federal remediation due date: 24 Mar 2022

The CISA required action is shown under Remediation.

2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days (percentile 80%).

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

CERT-FR

No CERT-FR advisory or alert of the last two years references this CVE, for the vendors Patcharo covers.

Timeline

  1. Published by the source
  2. Added to CISA KEV
  3. CISA remediation due date
  4. Source record last modified
  5. EPSS score computed
  6. Last verified by Patcharo

Official sources

Vendor advisory

References

Cisco · CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities · NVD · FIRST EPSS · Cisco Security Advisory cisco-sa-20170927-vpls

How Patcharo reads this

Affected and fixed releases come from the vendor's structured statements and are matched against exact versions; CVSS from NVD, exploitation from CISA KEV and the vendor's own advisory, probability from FIRST EPSS. Missing data stays Unknown and never becomes Not affected.

Read the methodologyRead the guide: Cisco Secure Firewall release trains: Threat Defense, Management Center and ASA versions explained