# CVE-2018-0117: Denial of service in Cisco Virtualized Packet Core-Distributed Instance

> Remote unauthenticated attackers can cause a denial of service by sending malicious traffic to the internal network address, forcing system reloads.

- **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:** 8 Feb 2018
- **Updated:** 2 Dec 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-q3ch-44pq-833r

## What is CVE-2018-0117?

CVE-2018-0117 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Virtualized Packet Core-Distributed Instance, published on 8 Feb 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability in the ingress packet processing functionality of the Cisco Virtualized Packet Core-Distributed Instance (VPC-DI) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause both control function (CF) instances on an affected system to reload, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to insufficient handling of user-supplied data by the affected software. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending malicious traffic to the internal distributed instance (DI) network address on an affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause an unhandled error condition on the affected system, which would cause the CF instances to reload and consequently cause the entire VPC to reload, resulting in the disconnection of all subscribers and a DoS condition on the affected system. This vulnerability affects Cisco Virtualized Packet Core-Distributed Instance (VPC-DI) Software N4.0 through N5.5 with the Cisco StarOS operating system 19.2 through 21.3. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCve17656.

Weakness: CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-0117?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Cisco Asr 5000 Firmware, Cisco Asr 5500 Firmware.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-0117?

No fix has been published for CVE-2018-0117 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2018-0117 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-0117 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Virtualized Packet Core-Distributed Instance

- [CVE-2018-0217](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-0217/): Command injection in Cisco StarOS (medium 6.7)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-0117 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-0117 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Virtualized Packet Core-Distributed Instance, published on 8 Feb 2018. 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-2018-0117 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Virtualized Packet Core-Distributed Instance. 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-2018-0117/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-0117/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-0117
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-0117
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-0117

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-0117/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.