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Unified Computing SystemHardware / appliance · Cisco

CVE-2012-4094

MEDIUM · 5.4 CVSS v2.0 Published 2013-09-24
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
63/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
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
Buffer overflow in the Smart Call Home feature in the fabric interconnect in Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service by reading and forging control messages associated with Smart Call Home reports, aka Bug ID CSCtl00198.

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 · moderate confidence

Buffer overflow in the Smart Call Home feature in Cisco UCS fabric interconnect allows remote attackers to cause denial of service by reading and forging control messages associated with Smart Call Home reports.

MitigationApply relevant Cisco patches for CSCtl00198; if Smart Call Home is not required in the environment, disable the feature to reduce attack surface.

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
Unified Computing SystemHardware / appliance
Affected:all versions

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
High
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Complete

AV:N/AC:H/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. Confirm Smart Call Home is enabled
    Log into UCS Manager CLI and run 'show smart-call-home' or check via GUI under Admin > Communication Services > Smart Call Home
    Affected if Smart Call Home status shows as enabled or configured
  2. Identify UCS firmware version
    Run 'show version' in UCS Manager CLI to display the running firmware version
    Affected if Any version is running since all versions are affected per the CVE advisory
  3. Verify Smart Call Home configuration
    Run 'show running-config | include smart-call-home' to display current Smart Call Home configuration parameters
    Affected if Smart Call Home profile is configured and active
  4. Check Smart Call Home service status
    Run 'scope smart-call-home' then 'show detail' in UCS Manager to view service state and statistics
    Affected if Service is in enabled or active state

If Smart Call Home is enabled on any version of Cisco UCS, the environment is affected by this vulnerability

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

Apply relevant Cisco patches for CSCtl00198; if Smart Call Home is not required in the environment, disable the feature to reduce attack surface.

Fix this in Unified Computing System Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation6.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
20.0 hours of engineering $3,600
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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-2012-4094 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