CVE-2017-6742 vulnerability in Cisco Products
Published on July 17, 2017

The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) subsystem of Cisco IOS 12.0 through 12.4 and 15.0 through 15.6 and IOS XE 2.2 through 3.17 contains multiple vulnerabilities that could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to remotely execute code on an affected system or cause an affected system to reload. An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities by sending a crafted SNMP packet to an affected system via IPv4 or IPv6. Only traffic directed to an affected system can be used to exploit these vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities are due to a buffer overflow condition in the SNMP subsystem of the affected software. The vulnerabilities affect all versions of SNMP: Versions 1, 2c, and 3. To exploit these vulnerabilities via SNMP Version 2c or earlier, the attacker must know the SNMP read-only community string for the affected system. To exploit these vulnerabilities via SNMP Version 3, the attacker must have user credentials for the affected system. All devices that have enabled SNMP and have not explicitly excluded the affected MIBs or OIDs should be considered vulnerable. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCve54313.

Vendor Advisory Vendor Advisory NVD

Known Exploited Vulnerability

This Cisco IOS and IOS XE Software SNMP Remote Code Execution Vulnerability is part of CISA's list of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities. The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) subsystem of Cisco IOS and IOS XE contains a vulnerability that could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to remotely execute code on an affected system or cause an affected system to reload.

The following remediation steps are recommended / required by May 10, 2023: Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2017-6742 is exploitable with network access, and requires small amount of user privileges. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. It has an exploitability score of 2.8 out of four. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to be very high.

What is a Buffer Overflow Vulnerability?

The software performs operations on a memory buffer, but it can read from or write to a memory location that is outside of the intended boundary of the buffer.

CVE-2017-6742 has been classified to as a Buffer Overflow vulnerability or weakness.

Products Associated with CVE-2017-6742

You can be notified by stack.watch whenever vulnerabilities like CVE-2017-6742 are published in these products:

Cisco Internetwork Operating System (IOS)

Cisco IOS XE

What versions are vulnerable to CVE-2017-6742?