Cisco ASA Certificate Processing Denial of Service Vulnerability

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software versions for symmetric multi-processor (SMP) platforms contain a vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to trigger the device to crash.

The vulnerability is due to the SSL/TLS certificate handling code. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by generating a heavy SSL/TLS traffic load, which under selected circumstances may trigger the crash.

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

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker may require access to trusted, internal networks to generate large amounts of SSL/TLS traffic to be sent to an affected device. This access requirement could limit the likelihood of a successful exploit.