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iOSOperating system · Cisco

CVE-2012-1315

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v2.0 Published 2012-03-29
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
87/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Memory leak in the SIP inspection feature in the Zone-Based Firewall in Cisco IOS 12.4, 15.0, 15.1, and 15.2 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption or device reload) via crafted transit SIP traffic, aka Bug ID CSCti46171.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

A memory leak exists in the SIP inspection feature of Cisco IOS Zone-Based Firewall across versions 12.4, 15.0, 15.1, and 15.2. When specially crafted SIP traffic transits the firewall, the inspection engine fails to release allocated memory, causing progressive memory exhaustion that can lead to device reload or denial of service.

MitigationDisable SIP inspection if not required, or apply the corresponding Cisco IOS software update. If SIP inspection is business-critical, implement transit rate limiting on SIP ports at upstream network edges to reduce exposure to malformed packets.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
iOSOperating system
Affected:= 12.4= 15.0= 15.1= 15.2

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Complete

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify Cisco IOS version
    Run 'show version' command and note the IOS release number (e.g., 12.4(15)T, 15.1(4)M)
    Affected if The version begins with 12.4, 15.0, 15.1, or 15.2
  2. Verify Zone-Based Firewall is active
    Run 'show zone-pair security' and check if any zone-pairs exist with a security policy
    Affected if Zone-based firewall policies are configured and active
  3. Confirm SIP inspection is enabled
    Run 'show policy-map type inspect zone-pair' or 'show inspect' and look for SIP inspection entries in the policy
    Affected if SIP inspection is configured on any zone-pair policy
  4. Check for memory exhaustion indicators
    Run 'show memory summary' or 'show processes memory' and look for declining free memory or high memory usage by SIP inspection processes
    Affected if Free memory is consistently low or SIP-related processes consume excessive memory
  5. Review SIP traffic statistics
    Run 'show policy-map type inspect zone-pair' and examine SIP packet counts and drop statistics
    Affected if High volume of SIP traffic is being processed through the inspected zone-pair

A device is affected if it runs Cisco IOS 12.4, 15.0, 15.1, or 15.2 AND has Zone-Based Firewall with SIP inspection enabled, and processes SIP traffic that could trigger the memory leak.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Disable SIP inspection if not required, or apply the corresponding Cisco IOS software update. If SIP inspection is business-critical, implement transit rate limiting on SIP ports at upstream network edges to reduce exposure to malformed packets.

Fix this in iOS Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,770
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Scan for this in your stack

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2012-1315 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data