Medium 6.5Known exploited (CISA KEV)Published Sep 28, 2017

CVE-2017-12238A 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 C680…

Updated under an hour ago (2026-10-19 07:50 UTC)

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CISA lists it as known exploited since Mar 3, 2022; federal agencies had to remediate by Mar 24, 2022. Treat that date as your deadline.

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Exploited in the last 30 days

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.

CVSS: 6.5 MEDIUM (v3.1, CISA ADP)CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Weakness (CWE): CWE-399
Known exploited: Added to CISA KEV Mar 3, 2022; federal remediation due Mar 24, 2022Apply updates per vendor instructions.
EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days): 2.02% (percentile 81)
Assigned by: cisco
NVD analysis: Analyzed
Record last updated: Jan 12, 2026
First seen by InfoSec Signals: Oct 9, 2026

Affected products

Affected products

cisco ios cisco:ios	from 15.0 through 15.4	NVD

References

http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1039453vdb-entry, x-refsource-sectrack, broken-link, third-party-advisory
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/101040vdb-entry, x-refsource-bid, broken-link, third-party-advisory
https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20170927-vplsx-refsource-confirm, vendor-advisory
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2017-12238us-government-resource

The CVE record on cve.org NVD's entry

The CVE record is authoritative. Products marked “from the name” were identified from the CNA's free-text names, not a CPE, and are matched less certainly. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.