CVE-2017-12309 Vulnerability Analysis & Exploit Details

CVE-2017-12309
Vulnerability Scoring

5.3
/10
Significant Risk

Security assessments indicate that CVE-2017-12309 presents a notable risk, potentially requiring prompt mitigation.

Attack Complexity Details

  • Attack Complexity: Low
    Exploits can be performed without significant complexity or special conditions.
  • Attack Vector: Network
    Vulnerability is exploitable over a network without physical access.
  • Privileges Required: None
    No privileges are required for exploitation.
  • Scope: Unchanged
    Exploit remains within the originally vulnerable component.
  • User Interaction: None
    No user interaction is necessary for exploitation.

CVE-2017-12309 Details

Status: Modified

Last updated: 🕒 21 Nov 2024, 03:09 UTC
Originally published on: 🕖 16 Nov 2017, 07:29 UTC

Time between publication and last update: 2561 days

CVSS Release: version 3

CVSS3 Source

nvd@nist.gov

CVSS3 Type

Primary

CVSS3 Vector

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

CVE-2017-12309 Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2017-12309: A vulnerability in the Cisco Email Security Appliance (ESA) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to conduct a HTTP response splitting attack. The vulnerability is due to the failure of the application or its environment to properly sanitize input values. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by injecting malicious HTTP headers, controlling the response body, or splitting the response into multiple responses. An exploit could allow the attacker to perform cross-site scripting attacks, cross-user defacement, web cache poisoning, and similar exploits. Cisco Bug IDs: CSCvf16705.

Assessing the Risk of CVE-2017-12309

Access Complexity Graph

The exploitability of CVE-2017-12309 depends on two key factors: attack complexity (the level of effort required to execute an exploit) and privileges required (the access level an attacker needs).

Exploitability Analysis for CVE-2017-12309

With low attack complexity and no required privileges, CVE-2017-12309 is an easy target for cybercriminals. Organizations should prioritize immediate mitigation measures to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches.

Understanding AC and PR

A lower complexity and fewer privilege requirements make exploitation easier. Security teams should evaluate these aspects to determine the urgency of mitigation strategies, such as patch management and access control policies.

Attack Complexity (AC) measures the difficulty in executing an exploit. A high AC means that specific conditions must be met, making an attack more challenging, while a low AC means the vulnerability can be exploited with minimal effort.

Privileges Required (PR) determine the level of system access necessary for an attack. Vulnerabilities requiring no privileges are more accessible to attackers, whereas high privilege requirements limit exploitation to authorized users with elevated access.

CVSS Score Breakdown Chart

Above is the CVSS Sub-score Breakdown for CVE-2017-12309, illustrating how Base, Impact, and Exploitability factors combine to form the overall severity rating. A higher sub-score typically indicates a more severe or easier-to-exploit vulnerability.

CIA Impact Analysis

Below is the Impact Analysis for CVE-2017-12309, showing how Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability might be affected if the vulnerability is exploited. Higher values usually signal greater potential damage.

  • Confidentiality: None
    CVE-2017-12309 has no significant impact on data confidentiality.
  • Integrity: Low
    Exploiting CVE-2017-12309 may cause minor changes to data without severely impacting its accuracy.
  • Availability: None
    CVE-2017-12309 does not impact system availability.

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

The EPSS score estimates the probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the near future.

EPSS Score: 0.134% (probability of exploit)

EPSS Percentile: 50.15% (lower percentile = lower relative risk)
This vulnerability is less risky than approximately 49.85% of others.

CVE-2017-12309 References

External References

CWE Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-113

CAPEC Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification

  • HTTP Request Splitting CAPEC-105 An adversary abuses the flexibility and discrepancies in the parsing and interpretation of HTTP Request messages by different intermediary HTTP agents (e.g., load balancer, reverse proxy, web caching proxies, application firewalls, etc.) to split a single HTTP request into multiple unauthorized and malicious HTTP requests to a back-end HTTP agent (e.g., web server). See CanPrecede relationships for possible consequences.
  • Accessing/Intercepting/Modifying HTTP Cookies CAPEC-31 This attack relies on the use of HTTP Cookies to store credentials, state information and other critical data on client systems. There are several different forms of this attack. The first form of this attack involves accessing HTTP Cookies to mine for potentially sensitive data contained therein. The second form involves intercepting this data as it is transmitted from client to server. This intercepted information is then used by the adversary to impersonate the remote user/session. The third form is when the cookie's content is modified by the adversary before it is sent back to the server. Here the adversary seeks to convince the target server to operate on this falsified information.
  • HTTP Response Splitting CAPEC-34 An adversary manipulates and injects malicious content, in the form of secret unauthorized HTTP responses, into a single HTTP response from a vulnerable or compromised back-end HTTP agent (e.g., web server) or into an already spoofed HTTP response from an adversary controlled domain/site. See CanPrecede relationships for possible consequences.
  • AJAX Footprinting CAPEC-85 This attack utilizes the frequent client-server roundtrips in Ajax conversation to scan a system. While Ajax does not open up new vulnerabilities per se, it does optimize them from an attacker point of view. A common first step for an attacker is to footprint the target environment to understand what attacks will work. Since footprinting relies on enumeration, the conversational pattern of rapid, multiple requests and responses that are typical in Ajax applications enable an attacker to look for many vulnerabilities, well-known ports, network locations and so on. The knowledge gained through Ajax fingerprinting can be used to support other attacks, such as XSS.

Vulnerable Configurations

  • cpe:2.3:o:cisco:email_security_appliance_firmware:10.0.2-020:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:o:cisco:email_security_appliance_firmware:10.0.2-020:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:o:cisco:email_security_appliance_firmware:11.0.0-105:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:o:cisco:email_security_appliance_firmware:11.0.0-105:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

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