High severity · published May 7, 2025
CVE-2025-20162
A vulnerability in the DHCP snooping security feature of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a full interface queue wedge, which could…
8.6
CVSS
0.5%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
A vulnerability in the DHCP snooping security feature of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a full interface queue wedge, which could result in a denial of service (DoS) condition.
This vulnerability is due to improper handling of DHCP request packets. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending DHCP request packets to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause packets to wedge in the queue, creating a DoS condition for downstream devices of the affected system and requiring that the system restart to drain the queue.
Note: This vulnerability can be exploited with either unicast or broadcast DHCP packets on a VLAN that does not have DHCP snooping enabled.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Changed
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.5% · higher than 45% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
IX
IOS XE · Cisco
16.11.1; 16.11.1a; 16.11.1s; 16.11.2; 16.12.1; 16.12.1a; +34 more · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-20162
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-20162
Vendor Advisory
https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-iosxe-dhcpsn-dos-xBn8Mtks
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