CVE-2017-12240

Cisco IOS and IOS XE

Published 29 Sept 2017 · updated 17 Jun 2026 · Analyzed

9.8 Critical · CVSS 3.1, NVD

Exploited in the wild

CISA added this to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 3 Mar 2022, with a remediation deadline of 24 Mar 2022 for US federal agencies.

Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Description

The DHCP relay subsystem of Cisco IOS 12.2 through 15.6 and Cisco IOS XE Software contains a vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code and gain full control of an affected system. The attacker could also cause an affected system to reload, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to a buffer overflow condition in the DHCP relay subsystem of the affected software. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted DHCP Version 4 (DHCPv4) packet to an affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code and gain full control of the affected system or cause the affected system to reload, resulting in a DoS condition. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCsm45390, CSCuw77959.

References