{"id":87109,"date":"2026-06-13T00:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T00:59:10","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T06:00:00","slug":"cve-2025-20140-cisco-ios-xe-software-wireless-network-control-daemon-vulnerability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-20140-cisco-ios-xe-software-wireless-network-control-daemon-vulnerability\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CVE-2025-20140: Cisco IOS XE Software Wireless Network Control Daemon Vulnerability<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The following report provides a detailed analysis of a notable cybersecurity vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-20140. This vulnerability resides in the Wireless Network Control daemon (wncd) of Cisco IOS XE Software for Wireless LAN Controllers. If exploited, it could lead to severe consequences such as a denial of service (DoS) condition, potential system compromise, or data leakage, affecting various businesses and organizations relying on Cisco&#8217;s wireless networking solutions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE ID: CVE-2025-20140<br \/>\nSeverity: High (7.4)<br \/>\nAttack Vector: Network<br \/>\nPrivileges Required: Low<br \/>\nUser Interaction: None<br \/>\nImpact: Denial of Service (DoS), potential system compromise, or data leakage<\/p>\n<p><strong>Affected Products<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-833617704\" 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>Cisco IOS XE Software | All versions prior to the patch<\/p>\n<p><strong>How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The vulnerability arises from improper memory management within the Wireless Network Control daemon (wncd) of Cisco IOS XE Software. An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by sending a series of IPv6 network requests from an associated wireless IPv6 client to an affected device. If successful, this exploit could cause the wncd process to consume all available memory, leading to the device stopping its response and hence resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-2042792075\" 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 the vulnerability might be exploited. The attacker would send a series of IPv6 network requests, each potentially causing increased memory consumption on the targeted device.<\/p>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\"># Attacker&#039;s device (IPv6 client)\nfor i in {1..100000}\ndo\n# Send network request to the targeted device\ncurl -6 http:\/\/[target_device_ipv6_address]\/request_endpoint\ndone<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>Please note that this is a conceptual representation and does not represent an actual exploit code.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview The following report provides a detailed analysis of a notable cybersecurity vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-20140. This vulnerability resides in the Wireless Network Control daemon (wncd) of Cisco IOS XE Software for Wireless LAN Controllers. If exploited, it could lead to severe consequences such as a denial of service (DoS) condition, potential system compromise, or [&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":[],"tags":[],"vendor":[],"product":[],"attack_vector":[],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-87109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87109","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=87109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87109"},{"taxonomy":"vendor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vendor?post=87109"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=87109"},{"taxonomy":"attack_vector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/attack_vector?post=87109"},{"taxonomy":"asset_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/asset_type?post=87109"},{"taxonomy":"severity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/severity?post=87109"},{"taxonomy":"exploit_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exploit_status?post=87109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}