Cisco NX-OS Software Netstack Denial of Service Vulnerability

A vulnerability in the network stack of Cisco NX-OS Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on the affected device.

The vulnerability is due to an issue with allocating and freeing memory buffers in the network stack. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted TCP streams to an affected device in a sustained way. A successful exploit could cause the network stack of an affected device to run out of available buffers, impairing operations of control plane and management plane protocols, resulting in a DoS condition.

Note: This vulnerability can be triggered only by traffic that is destined to an affected device and cannot be exploited using traffic that transits an affected device.

Cisco has released software updates that address this vulnerability. There are no workarounds that address this vulnerability.

This advisory is available at the following link:
https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20190306-nxos-netstack [“https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20190306-nxos-netstack”]
This advisory is part of the March 2019 Cisco FXOS and NX-OS Software Security Advisory Bundled Publication, which includes 25 Cisco Security Advisories that describe 26 vulnerabilities. For a complete list of the advisories and links to them, see Cisco Event Response: March 2019 Cisco FXOS and NX-OS Software Security Advisory Bundled Publication [“https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/viewErp.x?alertId=ERP-70757”].