Threats / Cisco / CVE-2018-0296
CVE-2018-0296
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-08-04
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) vulnerability
Cisco ASA contains an improper input validation vulnerability in HTTP URL handling that could allow attackers to cause denial-of-service or information disclosure.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An attacker can exploit improper input validation of HTTP URLs in Cisco ASA to trigger denial-of-service conditions or leak sensitive information. This vulnerability is actively exploited in the wild with high exploitability.
CISA KEV Yes · 2021-11-035EPSS 0.99903 (verify live)6Exploit Weaponized · public PoC7CVSS 7.5 (CISA)4CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · Impact: partial4
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreExploit available
Fully weaponized — public exploit code is cataloged for this vulnerability.We link the existence of the exploit; we do not host or redistribute payloads.
Reported exploitation
395 independent public reports 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 2021-11-03).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.99903 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 7.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H) · Affected: Cisco, Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA). 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.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-20 Improper Input Validation.CWE — CNA-assigned (CVE.org); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: yes · 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 1245 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.
Public exploit available
Public exploit tooling is catalogued for this CVE (a public proof-of-concept / detection template). Catalog entries: Metasploit module, nuclei template. We link the catalog page(s) only — no payload or code is hosted or restated here.Link, never host — the catalog page is the source; basicsecurity.net does not redistribute payloads.
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 malformed HTTP URLs to bypass input validation checks in the ASA.
Business
The organization loses availability or confidentiality of security appliance functions.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I send specially crafted requests that cause the ASA to crash or become unresponsive.
Business
Network traffic inspection and security policy enforcement are disrupted, exposing the organization to unfiltered threats.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I extract sensitive information through the validation bypass to reconnaissance the security posture.
Business
Attackers gain intelligence to plan further intrusions or lateral movement within the network.
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