CVE-2018-0315

What is this vulnerability?

CVE-2018-0315 is categorized as a critical Buffer Overflow flaw with a CVSS base score of 9.8. Based on our vulnerability intelligence, this issue occurs when the application fails to securely handle untrusted data boundaries.

A vulnerability in the authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) security services of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on an affected device or cause an affected device to reload, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to incorrect memory operations that the affected software performs when the software parses a username during login authentication. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by attempting to authenticate to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected device or cause the affected device to reload, resulting in a DoS condition. This vulnerability affects Cisco devices that are running Cisco IOS XE Software Release Fuji 16.7.1 or Fuji 16.8.1 and are configured to use AAA for login authentication. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCvi25380.

This architectural defect enables adversaries to bypass intended security controls, directly manipulating the application's execution state or data layer. Immediate strategic intervention is required.

Risk Assessment

Impact on Systems

✅ Remote Code Execution: Attackers can overwrite the instruction pointer to redirect execution to malicious shellcode.

✅ Memory Corruption: Overwriting adjacent memory regions can corrupt critical application state, leading to privilege escalation.

✅ Denial of Service: Triggering segmentation faults results in immediate disruption of critical systems.

How to Fix and Mitigate CVE-2018-0315

1. Apply Vendor Patches: Upgrade affected components to their latest, non-vulnerable versions immediately.
2. Implement Input Validation: Ensure all user-supplied data is validated, sanitized, and type-checked before processing.
3. Deploy Runtime Protection: Use Precogs continuous monitoring to detect exploitation attempts in real time.
4. Audit Dependencies: Review and update all third-party libraries and transitive dependencies.

Defending with Precogs AI

Precogs Binary SAST/DAST engine performs deep structural analysis of compiled binaries, detecting memory corruption, control-flow hijacking, and privilege escalation vulnerabilities without requiring source code access.

Use Precogs to continuously scan your codebase, binaries, APIs, and infrastructure for this vulnerability class and related attack patterns. Our AI-powered detection engine combines static analysis with threat intelligence to identify exploitable weaknesses before attackers do.

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Vulnerability Code Signature

Attack Data Flow

Vulnerable Code Pattern

// ❌ VULNERABLE: Memory Buffer Overflow
void process_data(char *input) {
    char buffer[64];
    // Taint sink: copies without bounds checking
    strcpy(buffer, input);
}

Secure Code Pattern

// ✅ SECURE: Bounded copy
void process_data(char *input) {
    char buffer[64];
    // Sanitized boundary check
    strncpy(buffer, input, sizeof(buffer) - 1);
    buffer[sizeof(buffer) - 1] = '\0';
}

How Precogs Detects This

Precogs Binary SAST engine explicitly uncovers memory boundary violations and unsafe memory management functions in compiled binaries.