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CVE-2018-0171

Exploitation: active CVSS 7.5 HIGH

CVSS base score: 7.5 (High) CISA · v3.1

Score assigned by CISA's Vulnrichment program; the vendor's CVE record did not include one.

Cisco IOS and IOS XE Software Smart Install Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

Vendor: Cisco   Product: IOS and IOS XE

Description

Cisco IOS and IOS XE Software improperly validates packet data, allowing an unauthenticated, remote attacker to trigger a reload of an affected device, cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition, or perform code execution on the affected device.

Lifecycle Timeline

Each milestone comes from a different source, so gaps between them are gaps in what those sources publish, not evidence that nothing happened. EPSS history for this CVE holds 262 points from 2021-12-11, tracked daily from 2026-09-09; earlier points are weekly, which dates a spike to within a week. Peak probability 99.5% on 2026-07-18.

Published Applicability

CVE List v5 (CNA container) 1 affected · 0 fixed · 0 not affected

Check whether a specific version is affected →

What each source publishes about which product versions carry this vulnerability, kept as written rather than merged. Absence here means no source has published applicability data, not that nothing is affected.

Research & News Coverage

No mentions found in monitored research blogs or news feeds.

Detection & Exploitation

Scan
Exploit / Pen Test
Host / SIEM
none published

Coverage across public collections only: Nuclei and OpenVAS NVT (scan); Snort and Suricata ET Open (network); Sigma and YARA (host/SIEM); Metasploit, Exploit-DB and public GitHub repositories (exploit). Absence here means nothing public was found, not that detection is impossible.
GitHub PoC repositories are collected automatically by PoC-in-GitHub (CC0) and are not vetted: some are fakes and some are malware. Treat them as evidence that code was published, not as code to run.
OpenVAS coverage derives from the Greenbone Community Feed, made available under the Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0; its individual Vulnerability Tests are licensed GNU GPL v2.

CISA Assessment (Vulnrichment / SSVC)

active
yes
total
7.5 HIGH
—
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE-20 —
2024-11-08

D3FEND Countermeasures

Defensive techniques inferred by MITRE D3FEND from the underlying weakness (CWE-20) — general hardening and detection guidance for this weakness class, not a vendor patch for this specific CVE.

KEV Catalog Status

2021-11-03
2022-05-03
Unknown

Listed By

SourceDateRecord
CISA KEV 2021-11-03 source record →
CISA Vulnrichment 2024-11-08 source record →

Referenced in Advisories

DateAdvisoryIssuer
2026-07-14 Improve Router Hygiene to Protect Against Russian State-Sponsored Targeting ASD/ACSC
2026-07-13 Improve Router Hygiene to Protect Against Russian State-Sponsored Targeting NSA
2025-08-27 Countering Chinese State-Sponsored Actors Compromise of Networks Worldwide to Feed Global Espionage System NSA
2025-08-27 Countering Chinese State-Sponsored Actors Compromise of Networks Worldwide to Feed Global Espionage System NSA
2025-08-27 CSA: Countering China State Actors Compromise of Networks NSA
2025-08-20 Russian Government Cyber Actors Targeting Networking Devices, Critical Infrastructure FBI

Weaponization Timeline — Offensive & Testing Tools

No exploit-tool sightings recorded for this CVE.

Evidence tiers are explained on the About page — a merged Metasploit module is far stronger evidence than a distro package mention.

External References