Secure Firewall Management CenterApplication · Cisco
CVE-2018-0370
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 · uneditedA vulnerability in the detection engine of Cisco Firepower System Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause one of the detection engine processes to run out of memory and thus slow down traffic processing. The vulnerability is due to improper handling of traffic when the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) inspection policy is enabled. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending malicious traffic through an affected device. An exploit could allow the attacker to increase the resource consumption of a single instance of the Snort detection engine on an affected device. This will lead to performance degradation and eventually the restart of the affected Snort process. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCvi09219, CSCvi29845.
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 confidenceA vulnerability in the Snort detection engine of Cisco Firepower System Software allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to cause memory exhaustion by sending malicious traffic through an affected device when SSL inspection is enabled. The vulnerability stems from improper handling of SSL inspection traffic, causing a single Snort detection engine instance to consume excessive resources, leading to performance degradation and eventual process restart.
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
Secure Firewall Management CenterApplication
= 6.1.0.7= 6.2.0.5= 6.2.2.2CVSS 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
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/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 the productConfirm the device is Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (formerly Firepower Management Center). Check the system dashboard or about page for the product name.Affected if Product is not Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center, then this CVE does not apply.
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Check the installed versionNavigate to the FMC dashboard, typically under Help > About or System > Management Center > Updates, and note the exact version number.Affected if Version is exactly 6.1.0.7, 6.2.0.5, or 6.2.2.2 - other versions are not affected by this specific CVE.
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Verify SSL inspection is enabledGo to Policies > SSL Inspection or check the active SSL inspection policy configuration. Confirm that SSL inspection is turned on and actively processing traffic.Affected if SSL inspection is disabled or not configured - the vulnerability cannot be exploited without SSL inspection being enabled.
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Monitor for memory exhaustion symptomsCheck system health, Snort process status, or device performance metrics. Look for unusually high memory usage by the Snort process, process restarts, or degraded throughput.Affected if Memory exhaustion or Snort process crashes are occurring while SSL inspection is active on an affected version.
The environment is affected only if the product is Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center, the version is exactly 6.1.0.7, 6.2.0.5, or 6.2.2.2, AND SSL inspection is enabled.
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 or upgrade to a fixed Firepower System Software version that properly handles SSL inspection traffic to prevent memory exhaustion in the Snort detection engine.
Fix this in Secure Firewall Management Center
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation6.0 h
- Implementation10.0 h
- Testing8.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $7,872.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2018-0370 — 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-2018-0370 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
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