CVE-2018-15397
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance IPsec VPN Denial of Service Vulnerability
A vulnerability in the implementation of Traffic Flow Confidentiality (TFC) over IPsec functionality in 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 restart unexpectedly, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to an error that may occur if the affected software renegotiates the encryption key for an IPsec tunnel when certain TFC traffic is in flight. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malicious stream of TFC traffic through an established IPsec tunnel on an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a daemon process on the affected device to crash, which could cause the device to crash and result in a DoS condition.
Attack profile
How easy it is to exploit
- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- High
- Privileges needed
- None
- User interaction
- None
What an attacker can affect
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
Exploit likelihood
What each source reports
NVD Score used
6.8
A vulnerability in the implementation of Traffic Flow Confidentiality (TFC) over IPsec functionality in 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 restart unexpectedly, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to an error that may occur if the affected software renegotiates the encryption key for an IPsec tunnel when certain TFC traffic is in flight. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malicious stream of TFC traffic through an established IPsec tunnel on an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a daemon process on the affected device to crash, which could cause the device to crash and result in a DoS condition.
- Record
CVE-2018-15397- CVSS 3.1
- 6.8 Medium
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H - CVSS 2.0
- 7.1 High
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C - Weakness
- CWE-320
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
CVE List No score
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance IPsec VPN Denial of Service Vulnerability
A vulnerability in the implementation of Traffic Flow Confidentiality (TFC) over IPsec functionality in 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 restart unexpectedly, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to an error that may occur if the affected software renegotiates the encryption key for an IPsec tunnel when certain TFC traffic is in flight. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malicious stream of TFC traffic through an established IPsec tunnel on an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a daemon process on the affected device to crash, which could cause the device to crash and result in a DoS condition.
- Record
CVE-2018-15397- Weakness
- CWE-320
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2018-7275 No score
A vulnerability in the implementation of Traffic Flow Confidentiality (TFC) over IPsec functionality in 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 restart unexpectedly, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to an error that may occur if the affected software renegotiates the encryption key for an IPsec tunnel when certain TFC traffic is in flight. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malicious stream of TFC traffic through an established IPsec tunnel on an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a daemon process on the affected device to crash, which could cause the device to crash and result in a DoS condition.
- Record
EUVD-2018-7275- Updated
- 2026-11-03
GitHub AdvisoriesGHSA-rhcj-jwww-2qpj
6.8
A vulnerability in the implementation of Traffic Flow Confidentiality (TFC) over IPsec...
A vulnerability in the implementation of Traffic Flow Confidentiality (TFC) over IPsec functionality in 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 restart unexpectedly, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to an error that may occur if the affected software renegotiates the encryption key for an IPsec tunnel when certain TFC traffic is in flight. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malicious stream of TFC traffic through an established IPsec tunnel on an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a daemon process on the affected device to crash, which could cause the device to crash and result in a DoS condition.
- Record
GHSA-rhcj-jwww-2qpj- CVSS 3.1
- 6.8 Medium
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H - Updated
- 2026-11-02
Affected products
History
| Recorded | Changed | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| aliases | EUVD | |
| first indexed | CVE List, GitHub Advisories, NVD |
Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.
In short
CVE-2018-15397 is a medium vulnerability (CVSS 6.8) in Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (asa) Software, published October 5, 2018. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 1.20%, the 68th percentile. No source names a fixed version.