Threats / Cisco / CVE-2018-0161
CVE-2018-0161
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
Cisco IOS Software vulnerability
A vulnerability in the SNMP subsystem of Cisco IOS Software on certain Catalyst Switches allows an authenticated remote attacker to cause denial of service.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An authenticated remote attacker can exploit a resource exhaustion flaw in SNMP processing to crash or hang affected Catalyst Switches, disrupting network operations. The vulnerability has been observed in active exploitation.
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
3 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 0.04233 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Cisco, IOS 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 craft a malicious SNMP request and send it to an authenticated session on the target switch.
Business
Network availability is compromised as the switch becomes unresponsive or crashes.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I trigger resource exhaustion in the SNMP subsystem, causing the device to enter a denial-of-service state.
Business
Critical infrastructure connectivity is lost, affecting dependent systems and services relying on the switch.
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