Threats / Cisco / CVE-2017-6663
CVE-2017-6663
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-08-04
Cisco IOS and XE Software vulnerability
A vulnerability in the Autonomic Networking feature of Cisco IOS and IOS XE Software allows an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause affected systems to reload, resulting in denial of service.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An unauthenticated attacker on the adjacent network can trigger a denial-of-service condition by exploiting the Autonomic Networking feature to force system reloads. This vulnerability has been observed in active exploitation.
CISA KEV Yes · 2022-03-034EPSS 0.02135 (verify live)5CVSS 6.5 (CISA)3CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: partial3
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
1 independent public report of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-03).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.02135 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 6.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H) · Affected: Cisco, IOS and IOS XE Software. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CISA-assigned via the ADP container (CVE.org), version 3.1; the CNA left no metrics, so CISA's own score is used ahead of NVD.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Technical Impact: partialCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 1669 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I craft a malicious message targeting the Autonomic Networking feature on an adjacent network segment.
Business
Network availability is disrupted as affected Cisco devices reload unexpectedly.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I send the crafted packet without authentication to trigger a reload condition on autonomic nodes.
Business
Critical infrastructure or service continuity is compromised during the outage window.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I repeat the attack to maintain persistent denial of service across the affected network.
Business
Operational costs increase due to incident response, recovery efforts, and potential SLA breaches.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05