CVE-2021-1312
Published: 20 January 2021
Summary
CVE-2021-1312 is a medium-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) vulnerability in Cisco Elastic Services Controller. Its CVSS base score is 5.3 (Medium).
Operationally, ranked in the top 18.7% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2021-6779
Vulnerability details
A vulnerability in the system resource management of Cisco Elastic Services Controller (ESC) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) to the health monitor API on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to…
more
inadequate provisioning of kernel parameters for the maximum number of TCP connections and SYN backlog. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a flood of crafted TCP packets to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to block TCP listening ports that are used by the health monitor API. This vulnerability only affects customers who use the health monitor API.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
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.