CVE-2018-0155: Cisco Catalyst Bidirectional Forwarding Detection Denial-of-Service Vulnerability

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities

Name

Cisco Catalyst Bidirectional Forwarding Detection Denial-of-Service Vulnerability

Vendor

Cisco

Product

Catalyst 4500 Series Switches and Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches

Added to the catalog

2022-03-03

Due date for US federal agencies

2022-03-17

Weaknesses

CWE-388

Catalog version

2026.10.30

A vulnerability in the Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) offload implementation of Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Switches and Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a crash of the iosd process, causing a denial-of-service (DoS) condition.

Required action (CISA)

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Ransomware use: CISA does not mark known use of this vulnerability in ransomware campaigns.

Links in CISA's notes

• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-0155

Read on 2026-11-02T23:39:54.475Z under licence cisa-kev-cc0@b0067899 from https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/feeds/known_exploited_vulnerabilities.json

NVD analysis

Status

Analyzed

Published

2018-03-28T22:29:00.420

Last modified

2026-06-17T01:29:57.360

Weaknesses

CWE-388, CWE-755

A vulnerability in the Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) offload implementation of Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Switches and Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a crash of the iosd process, causing a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to insufficient error handling when the BFD header in a BFD packet is incomplete. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted BFD message to or across an affected switch. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to trigger a reload of the system. This vulnerability affects Catalyst 4500 Supervisor Engine 6-E (K5), Catalyst 4500 Supervisor Engine 6L-E (K10), Catalyst 4500 Supervisor Engine 7-E (K10), Catalyst 4500 Supervisor Engine 7L-E (K10), Catalyst 4500E Supervisor Engine 8-E (K10), Catalyst 4500E Supervisor Engine 8L-E (K10), Catalyst 4500E Supervisor Engine 9-E (K10), Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches (K10), Catalyst 4900M Switch (K5), Catalyst 4948E Ethernet Switch (K5). Cisco Bug IDs: CSCvc40729.

References

• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/103565 (Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry)
• http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1040587 (Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry)
• https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/advisories/ICSA-18-107-05 (Third Party Advisory, US Government Resource)
• https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20180328-bfd (Vendor Advisory)
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/103565 (Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry)
• http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1040587 (Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry)
• https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/advisories/ICSA-18-107-05 (Third Party Advisory, US Government Resource)
• https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20180328-bfd (Vendor Advisory)
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2018-0155 (US Government Resource)

This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.

Read on 2026-11-02T23:41:35.381Z under licence nvd-api-terms-of-use@ff2a5288 from https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?cveId=CVE-2018-0155

CVE record

Assigner

cisco

State

PUBLISHED

Published

2018-03-28T22:00:00.000Z

Updated

2026-01-12T21:52:53.398Z

Problem types

CWE-388

A vulnerability in the Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) offload implementation of Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Switches and Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a crash of the iosd process, causing a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to insufficient error handling when the BFD header in a BFD packet is incomplete. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted BFD message to or across an affected switch. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to trigger a reload of the system. This vulnerability affects Catalyst 4500 Supervisor Engine 6-E (K5), Catalyst 4500 Supervisor Engine 6L-E (K10), Catalyst 4500 Supervisor Engine 7-E (K10), Catalyst 4500 Supervisor Engine 7L-E (K10), Catalyst 4500E Supervisor Engine 8-E (K10), Catalyst 4500E Supervisor Engine 8L-E (K10), Catalyst 4500E Supervisor Engine 9-E (K10), Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches (K10), Catalyst 4900M Switch (K5), Catalyst 4948E Ethernet Switch (K5). Cisco Bug IDs: CSCvc40729.

References

• 1040587
• 103565
• https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20180328-bfd
• https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/advisories/ICSA-18-107-05

Read on 2026-11-03T00:35:52.877Z under licence cve-terms-of-use@81bfa2f3 from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/main/cves/2018/0xxx/CVE-2018-0155.json

Defensive techniques (MITRE D3FEND)

D3FEND maps these defensive techniques to the weakness (CWE) that NVD lists for this CVE, through the digital artifacts the weakness affects. D3FEND does not say they stop this vulnerability.

MITRE D3FEND™ knowledge graph. © 2025 The MITRE Corporation.
"The MITRE Corporation (MITRE) hereby grants you a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use D3FEND for research, development, and commercial purposes. Any copy you make for such purposes is authorized provided that you reproduce MITRE's copyright designation and this license in any such copy." Terms: https://d3fend.mitre.org/tou/