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Secure Firewall Management CenterApplication · Cisco

CVE-2018-0385

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2018-07-16
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
84/100
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
A vulnerability in the detection engine parsing of Security Socket Layer (SSL) protocol packets for Cisco Firepower System Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition due to the Snort process unexpectedly restarting. The vulnerability is due to improper input handling of the SSL traffic. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted SSL traffic to the detection engine on the targeted device. An exploit could allow the attacker to cause a DoS condition if the Snort process restarts and traffic inspection is bypassed or traffic is dropped. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCvi36434.

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 vulnerability in Cisco Firepower's Snort detection engine allows remote unauthenticated attackers to crash the Snort process via crafted SSL packets, causing denial of service. The improper input handling of SSL traffic triggers an unexpected restart of the inspection process.

MitigationApply the vendor patch or update from Cisco for Firepower System Software (CSCvi36434) to remediate the improper SSL traffic handling in the detection engine.

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
Affected:= 5.4.0= 6.0.0= 6.1.0= 6.2.0= 6.2.2= 6.2.3= 6.3.0

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
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/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 checks

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

  1. Identify Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center version
    Log into the Firepower Management Center web interface and navigate to System > Updates, or run 'show version' via CLI to display the installed software version
    Affected if The displayed version matches 5.4.0, 6.0.0, 6.1.0, 6.2.0, 6.2.2, 6.2.3, or 6.3.0
  2. Verify Snort detection engine is active
    In the FMC web interface, go to Policies > Access Control Policy, select your policy, and confirm Intrusion Policy is set to a Snort-based policy (such as Balanced or Security over Connectivity)
    Affected if An intrusion policy with Snort is actively applied to traffic inspection
  3. Confirm SSL/SSH inspection is enabled
    In the FMC, navigate to Policies > Access Control Policy > your policy > SSL Inspection tab, or check Device > Device Management > your device > SSL Settings to see if SSL decryption rules are configured
    Affected if SSL inspection rules exist and the Snort engine processes SSL/TLS traffic
  4. Review system logs for Snort process restarts
    In the FMC, go to Monitoring > Syslog, or run 'grep -i snort /var/log/.*' via expert mode to search for unexpected Snort process crashes or restarts
    Affected if Logs show unexplained Snort process crashes or 'snort died' messages correlated with external SSL traffic

You are affected if your Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center runs any of versions 5.4.0, 6.0.0, 6.1.0, 6.2.0, 6.2.2, 6.2.3, or 6.3.0 and has Snort-based intrusion inspection with SSL traffic being processed.

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 the vendor patch or update from Cisco for Firepower System Software (CSCvi36434) to remediate the improper SSL traffic handling in the detection engine.

Fix this in Secure Firewall Management Center Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,750
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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-2018-0385 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
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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