Threats / Cisco / CVE-2018-0296
CVE-2018-0296
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) vulnerability
Cisco ASA contains an improper input validation vulnerability in HTTP URL handling that could allow attackers to cause denial-of-service or information disclosure.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An attacker can exploit improper input validation of HTTP URLs in Cisco ASA to trigger denial-of-service conditions or leak sensitive information. This vulnerability is actively exploited in the wild with high exploitability.
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreExploit available
Fully weaponized — public exploit code is cataloged for this vulnerability.We link the existence of the exploit; we do not host or redistribute payloads.
Reported exploitation
379 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 2021-11-03).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.99903 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: Cisco, Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA). Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-20 Improper Input Validation.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 malformed HTTP URLs to bypass input validation checks in the ASA.
Business
The organization loses availability or confidentiality of security appliance functions.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I send specially crafted requests that cause the ASA to crash or become unresponsive.
Business
Network traffic inspection and security policy enforcement are disrupted, exposing the organization to unfiltered threats.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I extract sensitive information through the validation bypass to reconnaissance the security posture.
Business
Attackers gain intelligence to plan further intrusions or lateral movement within the network.
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