Reference page — cumulative record through Thursday, October 8, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.

CVE-2017-12238

CVE-2017-12238MEDIUM

n/a Cisco IOS — Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches

  AV  AC  PR  UI  S  C  I  A   CVSS    EPSS   %ile   KEV
   A   L   N   N  U  N  N  H    6.5   .0202   80.3   YES

AFFECTED
  Product    Versions     Fixed
  Cisco IOS  Cisco IOS –  —

TIMELINE
  Aug 3   Reserved by cisco
  Sep 28  Published (CNA: cisco)
  Mar 3   Added to CISA KEV, remediation due 2022-03-24

CWE-399 · CNA: cisco · CVSS v3.1 · 4 references · KEV due March 24, 2022

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.

Lifecycle

Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
Date	Event	Detail
August 3, 2017	Reserved	Reserved by cisco
September 28, 2017	Published	Published (CNA: cisco)
March 3, 2022	KEV ADDED	Added to CISA KEV, remediation due 2022-03-24

Affected

Affected products and packages — 1 row
Vendor	Product / Package	Ecosystem	Version introduced	Fixed
n/a	Cisco IOS	—	Cisco IOS	—

Weaknesses

CWE-399

References (4)

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/101040 [vdb-entry, x_refsource_BID]
http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1039453 [vdb-entry, x_refsource_SECTRACK]
https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20170927-vpls [x_refsource_CONFIRM]
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2017-12238 [government-resource]

Authoritative record: CVE-2017-12238 at cve.org

Weaknesses: CWE-399

About this page

This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2017-12238 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Thursday, October 8, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.