Cisco TelePresence VCS and Expressway High CPU Utilization Vulnerability

A vulnerability in the SIP code of Cisco TelePresence Video Communication Server (VCS) and Cisco Expressway could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause high memory consumption and CPU utilization, which could cause some services to become unavailable and degrade performance.

The vulnerability is due to insufficient validation of crafted SIP packets. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted SIP packets to the affected system.

Cisco has confirmed the vulnerability in a security notice and released software updates.

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker may need access to trusted, internal networks behind a firewall to send crafted packets to the targeted device. This access requirement may reduce the likelihood of a successful exploit.

Cisco indicates through the CVSS score that functional exploit code exists; however, the code is not known to be publicly available.