CVE-2017-12238

MEDIUM

6.5

CVSS Score

Published: September 28, 2017 at 07:00 AM UTC

Updated: June 17, 2026 at 01:02 AM UTC

20 products affected across 1 vendorIOSCatalyst 6500Catalyst 6506-e

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Severity

MEDIUM6.5

Exploitation

CISA KEV

Exploit prediction

EPSS 2%

SSVC

Active

Actively Exploited

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog

EPSS Score2.0%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) estimates a 2.0% chance this CVE is exploited in the wild within the next 30 days — higher than 81% of all CVEs. It complements CVSS: a high EPSS on a mid-severity CVE can still be urgent.

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.

Required Action

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Ransomware Use

Unknown

Added to KEV

Mar 3, 2022

Remediation Due

Mar 24, 2022

1678 days overdue

Notes

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-12238

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.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

IOS · Cisconpm

95%

15.0 ≤ v ≤ 15.4

cisco-c6800-16p10g (environment) · cisco-c6800-16p10g-xl (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6000 (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6000-ws-svc-nam-1 (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6000-ws-svc-nam-2 (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6000-ws-x6380-nam (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6500 (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6500-e (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6500-ws-svc-nam-1 (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6500-ws-svc-nam-2 (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6500-ws-x6380-nam (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6503-e (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6504-e (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6506-e (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6509-e (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6509-neb-a (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6509-v-e (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6513 (environment) · cisco-catalyst-6513-e (environment)

C6800-16P10G · Ciscodevice

80%

All versions

C6800-16P10G-Xl · Ciscodevice

80%

All versions

Catalyst 6000 · Ciscodevice

80%

All versions

Catalyst 6000 Ws Svc Nam 1 · Ciscodevice

80%

All versions