# CVE-2017-12256: Denial of service in Cisco Wide Area Application Services

> Unauthenticated remote attackers can cause a denial-of-service condition on Cisco WAAS appliances by directing clients to access corrupted files.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 5 Oct 2017
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-7fgg-2gf2-8rv5

## What is CVE-2017-12256?

CVE-2017-12256 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Wide Area Application Services, published on 5 Oct 2017. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

A vulnerability in the Akamai Connect feature of Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) Appliances could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to certain file-handling inefficiencies of the affected system. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by directing client systems to access a corrupted file that the client systems cannot decompress correctly. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the affected device to crash or hang unexpectedly and result in a DoS condition that may require manual intervention to regain normal operating conditions. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCve82472.

Weakness: CWE-399

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-12256?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Cisco Wide Area Application Services.

## How do I fix CVE-2017-12256?

No fix has been published for CVE-2017-12256 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2017-12256 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-12256 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Wide Area Application Services

- [CVE-2013-3443](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-3443/): Code injection in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2014-2196](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2014-2196/): Code injection in n/a (critical 9.3)
- [CVE-2007-3923](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2007-3923/): Denial of service in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2015-6421](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-6421/): Denial of service in n/a (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2017-6628](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-6628/): Denial of service in Cisco Wide Area Application Services SMART-SSL Accelerator (medium 6.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2017-12256 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2017-12256 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Wide Area Application Services, published on 5 Oct 2017. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-12256 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Wide Area Application Services. 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-2017-12256/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-12256/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-12256
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-12256
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2017-12256

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-12256/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.