CriticalCVE-2015-0666

    Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) Directory Traversal Vulnerability (CVE-2015-0666)

    Published In CISA KEV since Sources: CVE.org

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    What is affected, what to do

    Directory traversal vulnerability in the fmserver servlet in Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) before 7.1(1) allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files via a crafted pathname, aka Bug ID CSCus00241.

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. The available sources name no fixed version. Check the vendor guidance in the references below. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

    Affected
    • Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) 10.3(1) lte *..7.0\(2\)
    • Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) 10.3(1) eq 6.3\(1\)..6.3\(1\)
    • Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) 10.3(1) eq 6.3\(2\)..6.3\(2\)
    • Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) 10.3(1) eq 7.0\(1\)..7.0\(1\)

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    Metrics

    7.5

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3

    7.5

    CVSS v3

    Severity High on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: CVE.org

    40.4 %

    EPSS score

    Elevated — model estimates 10-50% exploitation likelihood.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 98.7

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    Critical
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    215.35 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    actively exploited
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    7.5 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    7.5
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

    Read in glossary
    40.4 %
    Elevated — model estimates 10-50% exploitation likelihood.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    98.7
    Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    Actively exploited
    Published
    In CISA KEV since

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    CISA assessment (SSVC)
    Exploitation: active · automatable · Technical impact: partial
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 8 November 2024
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-22

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    This CVE sits on KEV because it is network-reachable without authentication, trivial to weaponise (a single crafted HTTP request), and yields read access to highly sensitive files on a network-management platform — including switch configurations and credentials that unlock lateral movement across the entire data-centre fabric. The exploitation likelihood sits in the top percentile band, so treat it as very likely to be probed. CISA does not currently flag ransomware use, but DCNM instances are classic pre-breach targets for fabric reconnaissance. In European data-centre and NIS2-scoped environments, rank this P1 whenever the management interface has ever been reachable outside a strictly segmented out-of-band network.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Upgrade Cisco DCNM to 7.1(1) or later (fix referenced as Cisco Bug ID CSCus00241). Versions 6.3(1), 6.3(2), 7.0(1) and 7.0(2) are all vulnerable and belong in the patch window today.
      • Until patched, restrict HTTP/HTTPS access to the DCNM management UI (default ports 80/443, legacy 8080) via firewall ACL to dedicated admin jump hosts in the management VLAN only. No reachability from production or user segments, and absolutely none from the internet.
      • Retro-hunt the DCNM web-server access logs for the last 90+ days for requests against /fmserver/ containing ../ or URL-encoded variants (%2e%2e%2f, ..%5c). Any hit triggers a compromise assessment: exfiltrated files may include SSH keys, TLS material, DCNM DB credentials, and managed-switch configs.
      • If exploitation is confirmed or suspected: rotate local DCNM service accounts, re-issue device credentials for managed Nexus/MDS switches, and reissue the DCNM TLS certificate.
      • Verify support status: these DCNM branches are past mainstream support. If no upgrade path exists in your environment, add the migration to Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC) to the CMDB as a mid-term action.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Network segmentation: place the DCNM management plane strictly in an out-of-band segment. The nearest L3 hop drops everything except admin-subnet traffic to the DCNM TCP port.
      • WAF or reverse proxy in front of DCNM: block and alert on URIs targeting /fmserver/* that contain ../, ..\, %2e%2e, %252e or absolute path prefixes (/etc/, /root/, C:\\).
      • IPS signature: Snort/Suricata rule along the lines of content:"/fmserver/"; http_uri; pcre:"/\.\.(\x2f|\x5c|%2f|%5c)/i";. Alternatively enable the existing Cisco Talos signatures for CVE-2015-0666 in block mode.
      • Filesystem hardening: constrain the DCNM service user via OS permissions to its install directory; explicitly deny read access to /etc/shadow, SSH private keys and any external credential stores to blunt the LFI impact.
      • IAM: do not run DCNM as local OS admin / root. Store the TACACS+/RADIUS credentials DCNM uses to manage switches in a vault (CyberArk, HashiCorp Vault) rather than flat on disk.
      • Egress control: whitelist outbound connections from the DCNM host (managed devices, NTP, syslog, patch source only). Anything else is an incident.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Web-server access log (Tomcat/Apache fronting DCNM): hunt GET /fmserver/* containing .., %2e%2e, %c0%ae in the URI. Sigma shape: selection: cs-uri-stem|contains: '/fmserver/' AND cs-uri-query|re: '(\.\./|%2e%2e)'.
      • Zeek http.log: uri contains fmserver and matches \.\./; correlate with status_code: 200 and response_body_len > 0 as a signal of a successful file read.
      • Linux auditd on the DCNM host: watch /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /root/.ssh/, DCNM config directory. Reads by the Tomcat/JBoss service user outside normal startup windows raise an alert.
      • EDR process telemetry: the DCNM Java process opens files outside its own install path. KQL shape: DeviceFileEvents | where InitiatingProcessFileName == "java.exe" and FolderPath !startswith "<DCNM_HOME>".
      • Netflow / Zeek conn.log: unusual spikes in response bytes from DCNM TCP/443 to non-admin source IPs — exfiltration of bulky config files is visible as per-session byte volume.

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    Actively exploited: treat the vulnerability as a priority in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2. If it is exploited in your environment, check the reporting obligation under Art. 23 (early warning within 24 hours).
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    Since 11.09.2026, manufacturers of affected products with digital elements must report actively exploited vulnerabilities under Art. 14 CRA, with an early warning within 24 hours via ENISA's single reporting platform.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    Directory traversal vulnerability in the fmserver servlet in Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) before 7.1(1) allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files via a crafted pathname, aka Bug ID CSCus00241.

    Source: NVD (NIST), cvelistv5, CISA KEV Catalog, CVE.org (MITRE)

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    ciscoprime_data_center_network_manager
    • 6.3\(1\)
    • ≤ 7.0\(2\)
    • 6.3\(2\)
    • 7.0\(1\)
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —

    Vendors and products

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-22Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

      Base

      The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-22

    Public exploit references

    Publicly reported proof-of-concepts, exploit modules and detection templates for this vulnerability. NEOSEC links to the original sources only and does not provide any exploit code.

    Public exploit references
    CISA KEV CatalogCISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)cisa.govactively exploited

    References & sources

    • securitytracker.com1032009Vulnerability database, x_refsource_SECTRACK, Broken link
    • tools.cisco.com20150401 Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager File Information Disclosure VulnerabilityVendor advisory, x_refsource_CISCO, Vendor advisory
    • cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2015-0666government-resource, US government resource
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