A vulnerability has been identified in the software of some of Cisco’s routing systems, which could potentially allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to exploit the vulnerability to deploy DoS attacks.
Revealed in a security advisory, Cisco put the vulnerability down to improper processing of malformed IPv6 packets carrying extension headers.
An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malformed IPv6 packet, carrying extension headers, through an affected Cisco IOS XR device line card. An exploit could then allow the attacker to cause a reload of the line card on the affected Cisco IOS XR device.
Apparently, the company said that the vulnerability can only be triggered by the traffic transiting an affected device. IPv4 traffic, or IPv6 traffic destined to an affected device cannot be used to exploit this vulnerability on an affected device.
The company detailed that the flaw only affects Cisco IOS XR Software for Cisco Network Convergence System 6000 (NCS 6000) and Cisco Carrier Routing System (CRS-X).
The company reassured in the advisory that the vulnerability has not been exploited in the wild and was discovered through internal testing. A path has already being pushed through by Cisco.
