CVE-2018-15383 Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Direct Memory Access Denial of Service Vulnerability
Remote attackers can cause Cisco ASA and FTD devices to reload by exhausting DMA memory through high-rate malicious traffic.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2018-15383?
CVE-2018-15383 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software, published on 5 Oct 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A vulnerability in the cryptographic hardware accelerator driver of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause an affected device to reload, resulting in a temporary denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability exists because the affected devices have a limited amount of Direct Memory Access (DMA) memory and the affected software improperly handles resources in low-memory conditions. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a sustained, high rate of malicious traffic to an affected device to exhaust memory on the device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to exhaust DMA memory on the affected device, which could cause the device to reload and result in a temporary DoS condition.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-15383?
It affects 3 products.
Products include Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software, Cisco Firepower Threat Defense, Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense.
How do I fix CVE-2018-15383?
No fix has been published for CVE-2018-15383 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2018-15383 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-15383 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software
- CVE-2025-20333 Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Buffer Overflow
- CVE-2016-6366 Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SNMP Buffer Overflow
- CVE-2026-20349 Cisco Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Heap Inspection
- CVE-2024-20353 Cisco ASA and FTD Denial of Service
- CVE-2016-6367 Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) CLI Remote Code Execution
All Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance Software vulnerabilities
Sources
Also known as GHSA-hmv9-9gm3-c2vc.