Background exploitation KEV catalog
CVE-2017-12238

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

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…

CheckOps priority index
3.9/10 Patch within 7 days
Severity6.5
Probability0.2
Exploitation2/5

Severity = CVSS. Probability = EPSS (FIRST). Exploitation = public signals: KEV, EUVD, ransomware, EPSS above 10 %, no account required.

EPSS · today 2.0% higher than 80.9% of CVEs
CVSS 3.1 6.5 AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:
Exploited for 1,706 days 03 Mar 2022
CISA due date 24 Mar 2022 for US federal agencies

Exploitation probability EPSS · FIRST

05010026 Sep05 Oct15 Oct24 Oct02 Nov
EPSS probability (%)Percentile among all CVEs

Exploitation signals 2 / 5

  • KEV catalog (CISA)03 Mar 2022
  • Exploited in EUVD (ENISA)03 Mar 2022
  • Used by ransomwareno
  • EPSS above 10 %2.0%
  • No account, over the networkno

What to do

Fix

Apply the vendor’s fix as soon as it is available.

CISA guidance: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Meanwhile

Take the service off the internet or restrict access to it, watch the logs and look for signs of compromise.

Manufacturers (CRA)

Exploited vulnerability in your product: early warning to ENISA within 24 h, then notification within 72 h (Article 14 of the Cyber Resilience Act). The CRA explained

Description ENISA EUVD

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 products

Cisco IOSCatalyst 6800 Series Switches
Affected versions
  • Cisco IOS
Weaknesses (CWE)

Open source packages OSV

Affected libraries according to OSV, with fixed versions.

Timeline

  1. Published

  2. Exploitation reported (ENISA)

  3. Added to the KEV catalog

  4. CISA remediation due date

References

Other exploited vulnerabilities from the same vendor

  • CVE-2026-76418Cisco Secure Firewall ASA Software and Cisco Secure FTD Software Unchecked Return Value to NULL Pointer Dereference Vulnerability
    5.3 · Rising fast
  • CVE-2026-76519Cisco Secure Email Gateway Relative Path Traversal Vulnerability
    5.8 · Rising fast
  • CVE-2026-76504Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager Hex Encoding Vulnerability
    7.5 · Actively exploited
  • CVE-2026-76460Cisco Identity Services Engine Incorrect Use of Privileged APIs Vulnerability
    8.7 · Actively exploited
  • CVE-2026-76461Cisco Secure Email Gateway SQL Injection Vulnerability
    7.2 · Actively exploited
  • CVE-2026-20079Cisco Firewall Management Center Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel Vulnerability
    9.1 · Actively exploited

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Sources: CISA KEV · ENISA EUVD · FIRST EPSS · OSV. Public data aggregated by CheckOps, updated automatically. Source texts remain the property of their authors. All exploited vulnerabilities