Threats / Cisco / CVE-2016-6415
CVE-2016-6415
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
Cisco IOS, IOS XR, and XE vulnerability
Cisco IOS, IOS XR, and IOS XE contain insufficient condition checks in IKEv1 security negotiation that allow attackers to retrieve sensitive memory contents, leading to information disclosure.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An unauthenticated attacker can exploit insufficient validation in IKEv1 negotiation to read arbitrary memory from affected Cisco devices, potentially exposing cryptographic material, credentials, or other sensitive data.
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreExploit available
Public proof-of-concept exploit code is cataloged for this vulnerability.We link the existence of the exploit; we do not host or redistribute payloads.
Reported exploitation
4 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-05-19).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.87687 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Cisco, IOS, IOS XR, and IOS XE. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-200 Information Exposure — weakness family: Authorization / access control.CWE assignment from the public NVD record; the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I craft a malicious IKEv1 negotiation request that bypasses condition checks to trigger memory disclosure.
Business
Sensitive cryptographic keys and authentication credentials are exposed to the attacker, compromising the confidentiality of encrypted communications.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I extract memory contents containing session state or configuration data from the device.
Business
Operational security posture is degraded as attackers gain intelligence about network topology, device configuration, and active security policies.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05