While combing through WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 data dump Attack.Databreach , Cisco has unearthed Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a critical vulnerability affecting 300+ of its switches and one gateway that could be exploited Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability to take over the devices . The flaw is present Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in the Cisco Cluster Management Protocol ( CMP ) processing code in Cisco IOS and Cisco IOS XE Software . “ The vulnerability is due to the combination of two factors : the failure to restrict the use of CMP-specific Telnet options only to internal , local communications between cluster members and instead accept and process such options over any Telnet connection to an affected device , and the incorrect processing of malformed CMP-specific Telnet options , ” Cisco explained . An exploit could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code and obtain full control of the device or cause a reload of the affected device ” . The extensive and complete list of affected devices is provided in the security advisory . Cisco says that they are not aware of any public announcements or active malicious use of the vulnerability , and that they will provide Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability free software updates to address Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability it ( they don ’ t say when ) . In the meantime , users can mitigate the risk by disabling the Telnet protocol and switching to using SSH . If that ’ s not possible , they can reduce the attack surface by implementing infrastructure access control lists . It also includes indicators of compromise that can be used to detect exploitation attempts