Threats / Cisco / CVE-2017-12237
CVE-2017-12237
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
Cisco IOS and XE Software vulnerability
A vulnerability in the IKEv2 module of Cisco IOS and IOS XE allows unauthenticated remote attackers to cause denial of service through high CPU utilization, traceback messages, or device reload.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can trigger resource exhaustion in affected Cisco IOS and IOS XE devices via crafted IKEv2 traffic, resulting in service disruption. The vulnerability has been exploited in the wild.
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
2 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 2022-03-03).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.06938 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Cisco, IOS and IOS XE Software. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-399 Resource Management Errors — weakness family: Resource / availability.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 send specially crafted IKEv2 packets to the target device without authentication.
Business
Network availability is compromised as the device becomes unresponsive or reloads.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I trigger excessive CPU consumption on the IKEv2 processing module through repeated malicious requests.
Business
Critical network infrastructure experiences performance degradation or complete outage.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I cause the device to generate traceback messages and potentially reload, disrupting VPN and security services.
Business
Remote access and encrypted communications fail, impacting business continuity and security posture.
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