A vulnerability in the Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP) protocol implementation of Cisco Aironet and Catalyst 9100 Access Points (APs) could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause an affected device to restart unexpectedly, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to improper resource management during CAPWAP message processing. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a high volume of legitimate wireless management frames within a short time to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a device to restart unexpectedly, resulting in a DoS condition for clients associated with the AP.
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aironet_1540_firmware | Cisco | - (including) | - (including) |
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:
The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.
The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.