Cisco Firepower Threat Defense Software Packet Inspection and Enforcement Bypass Vulnerability

A vulnerability in the data acquisition (DAQ) component of Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass configured access control policies or cause a denial of service (DoS) condition.

The vulnerability exists because the affected software improperly manages system memory resources when inspecting traffic. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by generating specific traffic patterns for the software to inspect. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to exhaust system memory resources used for traffic inspection. Depending on the configuration, the FTD Software could fail open and cease to inspect traffic or fail closed and result in a DoS condition. This vulnerability may require manual intervention to restore the software.

Cisco has released software updates that address this vulnerability. There are workarounds that address this vulnerability.

This advisory is available at the following link:
https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20190123-firepowertds-bypass [“https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20190123-firepowertds-bypass”]