CVE-2022-20679 Cisco IOS XE Software IPSec Denial of Service Vulnerability
Remote attackers can cause device reloads via IPSec traffic if MTU is 1800 or greater, requiring trusted network access.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2022-20679?
CVE-2022-20679 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Ios Xe, published on 15 Apr 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A vulnerability in the IPSec decryption routine of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause an affected device to reload, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. This vulnerability is due to buffer exhaustion that occurs while traffic on a configured IPsec tunnel is being processed. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending traffic to an affected device that has a maximum transmission unit (MTU) of 1800 bytes or greater. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the device to reload. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker may need access to the trusted network where the affected device is in order to send specific packets to be processed by the device. All network devices between the attacker and the affected device must support an MTU of 1800 bytes or greater. This access requirement could limit the possibility of a successful exploit.
Weakness: CWE-20
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-20679?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Cisco Ios Xe.
How do I fix CVE-2022-20679?
No fix has been published for CVE-2022-20679 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2022-20679 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-20679 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Ios Xe
- CVE-2023-20198 Cisco IOS XE Web UI Privilege Escalation
- CVE-2018-0151 Cisco IOS Software and Cisco IOS XE Software Quality of Service Remote Code Execution
- CVE-2023-20273 Cisco IOS XE Web UI Command Injection
- CVE-2025-20188 Hardcoded credentials in Cisco IOS XE Software
- CVE-2021-34770 Cisco IOS XE Software for Catalyst 9000 Family Wireless Controllers CAPWAP Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Sources
Also known as GHSA-hjgj-jq86-rpmm.