# CVE-2017-12245: Denial of service in Cisco Firepower Detection Engine

> An unauthenticated remote attacker can cause a denial of service by sending malicious SSL traffic that depletes system memory in Cisco Firepower Threat Defense devices.

- **Severity:** High 8.6 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 5 Oct 2017
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-vr7m-hqg9-v4mf

## What is CVE-2017-12245?

CVE-2017-12245 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center, published on 5 Oct 2017. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability in SSL traffic decryption for Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause depletion of system memory, aka a Firepower Detection Engine SSL Decryption Memory Consumption Denial of Service vulnerability. If this memory leak persists over time, a denial of service (DoS) condition could develop because traffic can cease to be forwarded through the device. The vulnerability is due to an error in how the Firepower Detection Snort Engine handles SSL traffic decryption and notifications to and from the Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) handler. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a steady stream of malicious Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) traffic through the device. An exploit could allow the attacker to cause a DoS condition when the device runs low on system memory. This vulnerability affects Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software Releases 6.0.1 and later, running on any of the following Cisco products: Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) 5500-X Series Next-Generation Firewalls, Firepower 2100 Series Security Appliances, Firepower 4100 Series Security Appliances, Firepower 9300 Series Security Appliances. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCve02069.

Weakness: CWE-772 (Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime), CWE-399

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-12245?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center.

## How do I fix CVE-2017-12245?

No fix has been published for CVE-2017-12245 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2017-12245 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-12245 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center

- [CVE-2026-20079](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20079/): Cisco Firewall Management Center Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel (critical 10.0, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-20131](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20131/): Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) Software and Cisco Security Cloud Control (SCC) Firewall Management Deserialization of Untrusted Data (critical 10.0, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-20316](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20316/): Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Use of Hard-coded Password (medium 5.3, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-20265](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20265/): Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Software Radius Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2024-20424](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-20424/): Command injection in Cisco Firepower Management Center (critical 9.9)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2017-12245 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2017-12245 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center, published on 5 Oct 2017. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-12245 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-12245/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-12245/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-12245
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-12245
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2017-12245

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-12245/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.