Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2004-1464 is a medium-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) vulnerability in Cisco Ios. Its CVSS base score is 5.9 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique OS Exhaustion Flood (T1499.001); ranked in the top 9% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
Cisco IOS versions 12.2(15) and earlier are affected by a vulnerability that allows remote attackers to trigger a denial of service by sending a crafted TCP connection to the Telnet or reverse Telnet port, resulting in refused VTY virtual terminal connections. The flaw is tracked as CWE-400 and assigned a CVSS 3.1 score of 5.9 reflecting network attack vector, high complexity, and high impact to availability with no impact to confidentiality or integrity.
An unauthenticated attacker with network reachability can open a specially formed TCP session to the Telnet service and thereby exhaust connection resources, blocking subsequent legitimate administrative access via VTY lines.
Vendor and third-party advisories, including the Cisco security advisory published in August 2004, direct administrators to apply the corresponding IOS software updates that correct Telnet session handling and to restrict exposure of the service where possible through access controls.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2004-1458
Vulnerability Data
Cisco IOS 12.2(15) and earlier allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (refused VTY (virtual terminal) connections), via a crafted TCP connection to the Telnet or reverse Telnet port.
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 19 May 2023
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Limiting concurrent sessions directly prevents uncontrolled resource consumption by capping the number of active sessions per user or account.
Analysis identifies uncontrolled resource consumption indicative of denial-of-service or abuse attempts.
Contingency plan testing includes resource exhaustion scenarios to verify recovery, making it harder for attackers to sustain exploits that cause uncontrolled consumption.
Updated contingency plans include current procedures to detect, contain, and recover from resource exhaustion, limiting an attacker's ability to sustain impact from uncontrolled consumption.
Alternate site allows resumption of operations if resource exhaustion at the primary site is exploited to cause unavailability.
Alternate telecommunications services enable resumption of essential functions when primary services become unavailable due to uncontrolled resource consumption.
The team can analyze and respond to resource exhaustion incidents, reducing the impact of attacks that exploit uncontrolled consumption weaknesses.
Timely maintenance support and spare parts enable rapid recovery from failures induced by uncontrolled resource consumption, shortening the impact window of denial-of-service attacks.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Explicitly requires monitoring and maintaining resource capacity, directly addressing uncontrolled consumption to preserve availability.
Continuous monitoring of computing resources can detect resource exhaustion but does not itself enforce allocation limits.
Resilience mechanisms such as avoiding single points of failure indirectly reduce impact of resource exhaustion.
Hardened configuration baselines can include resource quotas and limits that constrain consumption.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Resource-utilization monitoring and alerting on bottlenecks or overloads limits the impact of denial-of-service or resource-exhaustion attacks.
By continuously monitoring utilization, stress-testing peak loads, and maintaining documented plans to scale or throttle resources, the control directly limits an attacker’s ability to drive a system into uncontrolled resource exhaustion.
Pre-agreed severity-based prioritization and resource allocation during incident triage reduce the likelihood that an attacker-induced resource exhaustion will overwhelm the organization before corrective action is taken.
Business-continuity plans that include resource-management controls reduce the likelihood that an attacker can trigger uncontrolled resource consumption by forcing the system into a degraded or fallback state.
Defining RTOs and capacity requirements for ICT services during business-impact analysis forces organizations to provision sufficient resources and throttling mechanisms, reducing the likelihood that an attacker can induce denial-of-service through uncontrolled resource consumption.
Early notification of anomalous resource consumption or system malfunctions enables throttling or isolation before availability is lost.