{"id":39030,"date":"2025-05-17T20:21:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T20:21:55","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-09-26T20:58:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T02:58:51","slug":"cve-2025-20162-denial-of-service-vulnerability-in-cisco-ios-xe-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-20162-denial-of-service-vulnerability-in-cisco-ios-xe-software\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CVE-2025-20162: Denial of Service Vulnerability in Cisco IOS XE Software<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The cybersecurity sphere has been rocked by the discovery of a new and potentially devastating vulnerability, CVE-2025-20162, that affects the DHCP snooping security feature of Cisco IOS XE Software. This vulnerability is noteworthy due to its ability to cause a full interface queue wedge, leading to a potential denial of service (DoS) condition. It is of utmost concern to network administrators and system operators who rely on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-20188-cisco-ios-xe-software-for-wireless-lan-controllers-security-vulnerability\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"44061\">Cisco IOS XE Software<\/a> for their networking needs.<br \/>\nThe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-2776-unauthenticated-xxe-vulnerability-in-sysaid-on-prem-leading-to-admin-account-takeover\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"43700\">vulnerability matters because it enables an unauthenticated<\/a>, remote attacker to potentially disrupt and compromise system operations, leading to significant downtime and potential data leakage. Given Cisco&#8217;s widespread use in the enterprise, this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-31430-critical-deserialization-of-untrusted-data-vulnerability-in-the-business-software\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"53422\">vulnerability may have far-reaching implications for businesses<\/a>, institutions, and even governments worldwide.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE ID: CVE-2025-20162<br \/>\nSeverity: High &#8211; 8.6 (CVSS score)<br \/>\nAttack Vector: Network<br \/>\nPrivileges Required: None<br \/>\nUser Interaction: None<br \/>\nImpact: Denial of Service and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-4372-webaudio-heap-corruption-in-google-chrome-a-potential-gateway-to-system-compromise-and-data-leakage\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"43779\">potential system compromise or data<\/a> leakage<\/p>\n<p><strong>Affected Products<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-2116247436\" class=\"ameeb-content-2 ameeb-entity-placement\"><div style=\"border-left: 4px solid #555; padding-left: 20px; margin: 48px 0; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.6; max-width: 720px;\">\r\n  <h2 style=\"margin-top: 0; font-size: 22px; font-weight: 600; display: flex; align-items: center; letter-spacing: -0.02em;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"display: inline-flex; align-items: center; margin-right: 10px;\">\r\n      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Best-App-icon-Ameeba.png\" alt=\"Ameeba Chat Icon\" style=\"width: 42px; height: 42px;\" \/>\r\n    <\/a>\r\n    Share secrets securely\r\n  <\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 14px; color: #d1d5db;\">\r\n    Ameeba is private infrastructure for communication and sensitive work built on encrypted identity instead of exposed corporate identity systems.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 18px; color: #a1a1aa;\">\r\n    Passwords, credentials, confidential files, screenshots, internal discussions, sensitive AI context, and private coordination should not become exposed across ordinary communication platforms.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <ul style=\"list-style: none; padding-left: 0; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #e4e4e7;\">\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 Encrypted identity<\/li>\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 Private Spaces for organizations and teams<\/li>\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 End-to-end encrypted chat, calls, files, and notes<\/li>\r\n    <li style=\"margin-bottom: 8px;\">\u2022 Sensitive AI work and protected collaboration<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Built for information that cannot leak<\/li>\r\n  <\/ul>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 24px; color: #ffffff;\">\r\n    Our mission is to secure human work alongside AI.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <div style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 12px;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\/download\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 8px; font-weight: 500;\">\r\n      Download Ameeba\r\n    <\/a>\r\n\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ffffff; color: #ffffff; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 8px; font-weight: 500;\">\r\n      Learn More\r\n    <\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-20182-critical-vulnerability-in-cisco-device-software-allows-dos-attacks\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"46245\">Cisco IOS XE Software<\/a> | All versions before the patch<\/p>\n<p><strong>How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-47462-cross-site-request-forgery-vulnerability-in-ohidul-islam-challan-leading-to-privilege-escalation\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"43683\">vulnerability stems from improper handling of DHCP request<\/a> packets by Cisco IOS XE Software. An attacker can exploit this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-47533-cross-site-request-forgery-vulnerability-in-iqonic-design-graphina\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"44196\">vulnerability by sending malicious DHCP request<\/a> packets to the affected device. These packets, once received, can cause a full interface queue wedge, leading to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-20154-denial-of-service-vulnerability-in-cisco-ios-and-ios-xe-software\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"46326\">denial of service<\/a> condition for downstream devices.<br \/>\nThis vulnerability can be exploited with either unicast or broadcast DHCP packets on a VLAN that does not have DHCP snooping enabled, making it more challenging to detect and mitigate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-3522967300\" class=\"ameeb-content ameeb-entity-placement\"><div class=\"poptin-embedded\" data-id=\"f6b387694f681\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Below is a conceptual example of how an attacker might send malicious DHCP request packets:<\/p>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">#!\/bin\/bash\n# A conceptual bash script to send DHCP request packets\nfor i in {1..1000}\ndo\necho &quot;Sending DHCP request packet number $i&quot;\necho -e &quot;\\x01\\x01\\x06\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x00&quot; | nc -u -w1 [target IP] 67\ndone<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>Please note that this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-49526-out-of-bounds-write-vulnerability-in-illustrator-leading-to-arbitrary-code-execution\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"75229\">code is for illustrative<\/a> purposes only and is neither functional nor recommended for testing without proper authorization and precautions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recommended Mitigation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The recommended mitigation strategy for this vulnerability is to apply the vendor patch, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-20186-command-injection-vulnerability-in-cisco-ios-xe-software-s-wireless-lan-controller-feature\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"45518\">Cisco has released in response to the vulnerability<\/a>. In situations where immediate patching is not possible, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-31100-unrestricted-file-upload-leads-to-web-shell-deployment-in-mojoomla-school-management\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"84745\">deploying a Web<\/a> Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can serve as a temporary mitigation measure to detect and block malicious DHCP request packets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview The cybersecurity sphere has been rocked by the discovery of a new and potentially devastating vulnerability, CVE-2025-20162, that affects the DHCP snooping security feature of Cisco IOS XE Software. This vulnerability is noteworthy due to its ability to cause a full interface queue wedge, leading to a potential denial of service (DoS) condition. It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"vendor":[77,96],"product":[97],"attack_vector":[87],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-39030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","vendor-apple","vendor-cisco","product-cisco-ios-xe","attack_vector-dos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39030"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77530,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39030\/revisions\/77530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39030"},{"taxonomy":"vendor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vendor?post=39030"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=39030"},{"taxonomy":"attack_vector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/attack_vector?post=39030"},{"taxonomy":"asset_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/asset_type?post=39030"},{"taxonomy":"severity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/severity?post=39030"},{"taxonomy":"exploit_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exploit_status?post=39030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}