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CVE-2017-12238

6.5, medium Known exploited

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

NVD (opens in a new tab) CVE.org (opens in a new tab) CISA KEV catalogue (opens in a new tab)
CVSS
6.5, medium medium CVSS v3.1
EPSS, next 30 days
2% higher than 80.5% of scored CVEs
Exploitation
Confirmed in the wild
Published
29 Sept 20179 years ago

Known exploited

CISA added this to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog on 3 Mar 2022. US federal agencies had to remediate by 24 Mar 2022, a deadline that has passed.

Required action. Apply updates per vendor instructions.

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.

Details

Vendor
Cisco
Product
Cisco IOS
Weakness
CWE-399 (opens in a new tab)
Status
Analyzed
Updated
17 Jun 2026
Assigner
psirt@cisco.com

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

References 4

Advisories 3

Other references 1

The kind is read from NVD's tags where present and from the shape of the URL otherwise, so treat it as a hint.

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Beyond this page

Is CVE-2017-12238 in your network?

This page tells you how dangerous CVE-2017-12238 is out there. Whether it sits on one of your devices, only a scan of your own network can tell. That is what our systems do, every day, for the companies we protect.

CVE-2017-12238 is in the CISA catalogue of exploited vulnerabilities: attackers are already exploiting it.

  • EXYS7600 OCELOT

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  • EXYS7950 KONDRA

    Detect it if it's exploited

    Until the patch is applied, Kondra monitors your network, events and endpoints in real time. It keeps an inventory of the software installed on every endpoint, and its anomaly detection rules flag what an attacker does once inside.

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Check your exposure

Assembled from the NVD 2.0 API, the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog and FIRST EPSS. Scores are as of our last collection on 17 Oct 2026, not the live upstream state.