Cisco IOS/IOS XE SNMP Subsystem denial of service

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Cisco IOS and IOS XE. It has been rated as critical. This issue affects some unknown processing of the component SNMP Subsystem. The manipulation leads to denial of service. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2025-20174. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. There is no exploit available. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Cisco IOS and IOS XE (version unknown). It has been rated as critical. This issue affects an unknown function of the component SNMP Subsystem. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a denial of service vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-404. The product does not release or incorrectly releases a resource before it is made available for re-use. Impacted is availability. The summary by CVE is:

A vulnerability in the SNMP subsystem of Cisco IOS Software and Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to cause a DoS condition on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to improper error handling when parsing SNMP requests. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted SNMP request to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the device to reload unexpectedly, resulting in a DoS condition.  This vulnerability affects SNMP versions 1, 2c, and 3. To exploit this vulnerability through SNMP v2c or earlier, the attacker must know a valid read-write or read-only SNMP community string for the affected system. To exploit this vulnerability through SNMP v3, the attacker must have valid SNMP user credentials for the affected system.

The advisory is shared at sec.cloudapps.cisco.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2025-20174 since 10/10/2024. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be initiated remotely. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1499 for this issue.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 215126 (Cisco IOS Software SNMP DoS (cisco-sa-snmp-dos-sdxnSUcW)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at Tenable (215126). If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

Productinfo

Type

• Router Operating System

Vendor

• Cisco

Name

• IOS
• IOS XE

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.cisco.com/

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If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

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