CVE-2015-8373
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 kea-dhcp4 and kea-dhcp6 servers 0.9.2 and 1.0.0-beta in ISC Kea, when certain debugging settings are used, allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon crash) via a malformed packet.
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 confidenceISC Kea DHCP servers (kea-dhcp4 and kea-dhcp6) versions 0.9.2 and 1.0.0-beta contain a vulnerability where remote attackers can crash the daemon by sending malformed packets when specific debugging settings are enabled. The vulnerability stems from improper handling of malformed DHCP packets under debug conditions.
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= 0.9.2= 1.0.0CVSS 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
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
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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Identify installed Kea DHCP versionRun 'kea-dhcp4 -v' or 'kea-dhcp6 -v' to display the version. Alternatively, check the package manager (dpkg -l kea-dhcp4 kea-dhcp6 or rpm -qi kea-dhcp4 kea-dhcp6).Affected if Version equals 0.9.2 or 1.0.0-beta (or 1.0.0 before beta fixes were applied).
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Locate Kea configuration filesCommon locations include /etc/kea/kea-dhcp4.conf and /etc/kea/kea-dhcp6.conf. Check for files matching these paths or review startup scripts for custom config directories.Affected if Configuration files exist and the daemon is in use.
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Inspect debug logging settings in configurationOpen the configuration file and search for 'debug', 'loggers', or 'severity' settings. Look for any entries that enable debug-level logging or verbose diagnostic output.Affected if Debug or verbose logging is explicitly enabled in the configuration.
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Check runtime debug flagsIf running Kea, examine process arguments (ps aux | grep kea) for debug flags such as -d, --debug, or -v. Also check if the daemon was started with elevated logging via command line.Affected if The daemon is running with debug flags or verbose mode enabled at startup.
A system is affected only if it runs Kea version 0.9.2 or 1.0.0-beta AND has debug/diagnostic logging enabled in its configuration or at runtime.
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 dataDisable non-essential debugging settings in production Kea DHCP configurations, and upgrade to patched versions of ISC Kea beyond 1.0.0-beta to remediate this vulnerability.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2015-8373 — 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-2015-8373 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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- 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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