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Adaptive Security Appliance SoftwareOperating system · Cisco

CVE-2018-15454

HIGH · 8.6 CVSS v3.0 Published 2018-11-01
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 6.1.0.7 / 6.2.0.6 or later.
See remediation →
95/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
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 Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) inspection engine of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause an affected device to reload or trigger high CPU, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to improper handling of SIP traffic. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending SIP requests designed to specifically trigger this issue at a high rate across an affected device. Software updates that address this vulnerability are not yet available.

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 the SIP inspection engine of Cisco ASA and FTD software allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to cause device reload or high CPU by sending specially crafted SIP requests at high rates, resulting in denial of service.

MitigationApply Cisco software updates when available. As an interim measure, rate-limit SIP traffic or restrict SIP traffic to trusted sources at network boundaries to reduce exposure.

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
Adaptive Security Appliance SoftwareOperating system
Affected:>= 9.4, < 9.4.4.27>= 9.6, < 9.6.4.18>= 9.8, < 9.8.3.16>= 9.9, < 9.9.2.32>= 9.10, < 9.10.1.2
Secure Firewall Threat DefenseApplication
Affected:>= 6.1.0, < 6.1.0.7>= 6.2.0, < 6.2.0.6>= 6.2.2, < 6.2.2.4>= 6.2.3, < 6.2.3.7

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
Changed
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/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 checks

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

  1. Identify the Cisco ASA software version
    Log into the ASA CLI and run 'show version' to display the installed software version. Note the full version number including the maintenance release.
    Affected if The displayed version falls within any of these ranges: 9.4 to 9.4.4.26, 9.6 to 9.6.4.17, 9.8 to 9.8.3.15, 9.9 to 9.9.2.31, or 9.10 to 9.10.1.1.
  2. Identify the Cisco FTD software version
    Log into the FTD device and run 'show version' or check the management interface to display the installed software version.
    Affected if The displayed version falls within any of these ranges: 6.1.0 to 6.1.0.6, 6.2.0 to 6.2.0.5, 6.2.2 to 6.2.2.3, or 6.2.3 to 6.2.3.6.
  3. Determine if SIP inspection is enabled
    Run 'show service-policy' on the ASA or FTD CLI to list active inspection policies. Look for 'sip' in the inspection configuration. Alternatively, check the configuration with 'show run | include sip' to see if SIP inspection is configured.
    Affected if SIP inspection is explicitly configured and active on one or more interfaces.
  4. Verify network exposure to SIP traffic
    Review the interface configuration to determine whether SIP traffic from untrusted external sources can reach the device. Check ACLs and interface security levels to assess if the device is directly exposed to the internet or untrusted networks on SIP ports (typically UDP/TCP 5060).
    Affected if The device accepts SIP traffic from untrusted or internet-facing interfaces without adequate rate-limiting or source restrictions.

The device is affected if it runs a vulnerable ASA or FTD version AND has SIP inspection enabled AND is exposed to untrusted SIP traffic, as the attacker only needs to send crafted SIP requests at high rates to trigger the DoS condition.

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
Upgrade available Upgrade to 6.1.0.7 / 6.2.0.6 / 6.2.2.4 or later
Fixed in 6.1.0.76.2.0.66.2.2.4
Interim mitigation

Apply Cisco software updates when available. As an interim measure, rate-limit SIP traffic or restrict SIP traffic to trusted sources at network boundaries to reduce exposure.

Fix this in Adaptive Security Appliance Software Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation3.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
12.0 hours of engineering $2,100
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Scan for this in your stack

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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-2018-15454 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