# CVE-2022-20937: Denial of service in Cisco Identity Services Engine Software

> An unauthenticated remote attacker can cause significant delays in RADIUS authentications by exploiting insufficient resource management in Cisco ISE.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 3 Nov 2022
- **Updated:** 3 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-pmp2-f627-c94j

## What is CVE-2022-20937?

CVE-2022-20937 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Identity Services Engine, published on 3 Nov 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability in a feature that monitors RADIUS requests on Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to negatively affect the performance of an affected device.

 This vulnerability is due to insufficient management of system resources. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by taking actions that cause Cisco ISE Software to receive specific RADIUS traffic. A successful and sustained exploit of this vulnerability could allow the attacker to cause reduced performance of the affected device, resulting in significant delays to RADIUS authentications.

   There are workarounds that address this vulnerability.

Weakness: CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption), CWE-410 (Insufficient Resource Pool)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-20937?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Cisco Identity Services Engine.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-20937?

No fix has been published for CVE-2022-20937 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2022-20937 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-20937 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Identity Services Engine

- [CVE-2026-76460](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-76460/): Cisco Identity Services Engine Incorrect Use of Privileged APIs (critical 10.0, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-20337](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20337/): Cisco Identity Services Engine Injection (critical 10.0, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-20281](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20281/): Cisco Identity Services Engine Injection (critical 10.0, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-20130](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20130/): Cisco Identity Services Engine Hardening Release - Improper Neutralization Vulnerabilities (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2026-20192](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-20192/): Cisco Identity Services Engine Hardening Release - Access Control Vulnerabilities (critical 10.0)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-20937 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-20937 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Identity Services Engine, published on 3 Nov 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-20937 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Identity Services Engine. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-20937/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-20937/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-20937
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-20937
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-20937

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-20937/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.