Cisco Nexus Operating System Address Resolution Protocol Denial of Service Vulnerability

A vulnerability in the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) input packet processing of the Cisco Nexus Operating System (NX-OS) devices could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition.

The vulnerability is due to improper validation of the ARP packet and the maximum transmission unit (MTU) size, which results in a buffer overflow and could cause a DoS condition. An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by sending a crafted ARP packet to the device. An exploit could allow the attacker to cause the device to become unavailable due to the DoS condition of the ARP module.

Cisco has confirmed the vulnerability. Software updates are unavailable.

An unauthenticated, adjacent attacker could exploit this vulnerability if the targeted device is set to default configuration settings and running the affected version of the software.

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must be on the same broadcast or collision domain as the affected device. This access requirement could decrease the likelihood of a successful exploit.