Identity Services EngineHardware / appliance · Cisco
CVE-2013-3445
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 · uneditedThe firewall subsystem in Cisco Identity Services Engine has an incorrect rule for open ports, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption or process crash) via a flood of malformed IP packets, aka Bug ID CSCug94572.
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 confidenceThe firewall subsystem in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) contains an incorrectly configured rule for open ports. This allows remote attackers to cause denial of service by sending a flood of malformed IP packets, resulting in excessive CPU consumption or process crashes.
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
Identity Services EngineHardware / appliance
all versionsCVSS 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
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Confirm Cisco ISE is installedIdentify if Cisco Identity Services Engine is deployed in your environment by checking running processes, installed packages, or system information for 'ise' or 'Identity Services Engine'Affected if Cisco ISE software is present and running
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Verify firewall accessibilityCheck if the ISE appliance management interfaces or administrative ports are accessible from untrusted/networked environments rather than isolated management networksAffected if Administrative ports are exposed to untrusted networks
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Check for exposed network servicesReview network listener ports on the ISE system - identify which ports are bound to accessible network interfaces versus localhost-only interfacesAffected if Non-essential ports are listening on externally-reachable interfaces
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Monitor for DoS symptomsObserve system resource usage - check for unexplained high CPU utilization on the ISE appliance, particularly in firewall or network processing daemons, and look for repeated process crashesAffected if System exhibits high CPU consumption or process failures without other explanation
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Inspect for malformed packet activityReview network packet captures or firewall logs for patterns of malformed IP packets reaching the ISE applianceAffected if Malformed IP packets are reaching the ISE system
If Cisco ISE is running with firewall rules allowing untrusted access to management ports, and the system shows high CPU or process crashes under malformed packet traffic, the environment is affected by this CVE.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataApply the Cisco patch for Bug ID CSCug94572 to fix the firewall rule misconfiguration in ISE. As an interim measure, implement network-level filtering to block malformed IP packets before they reach the ISE appliance.
Fix this in Identity Services Engine
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,408.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2013-3445 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2013-3445 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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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.
- 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
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