CVE-2023-20089 Denial of service in Cisco NX-OS System Software in ACI Mode

What is CVE-2023-20089?

CVE-2023-20089 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Nx-Os, published on 23 Feb 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

A vulnerability in the Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) feature for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Fabric Switches in Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Mode could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause a memory leak, which could result in an unexpected reload of the device. This vulnerability is due to incorrect error checking when parsing ingress LLDP packets. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a steady stream of crafted LLDP packets to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a memory leak, which could result in a denial of service (DoS) condition when the device unexpectedly reloads. Note: This vulnerability cannot be exploited by transit traffic through the device. The crafted LLDP packet must be targeted to a directly connected interface, and the attacker must be in the same broadcast domain as the affected device (Layer 2 adjacent). In addition, the attack surface for this vulnerability can be reduced by disabling LLDP on interfaces where it is not required.

Weakness: CWE-401, CWE-789

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-20089?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Cisco Nx-Os.

How do I fix CVE-2023-20089?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-20089 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-2023-20089 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-20089 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Nx-Os

• CVE-2024-20399 Cisco NX-OS Command Injection Exploited Medium 6.0
• CVE-2021-1361 Cisco NX-OS Software Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Actions Vulnerability Critical 9.8
• CVE-2018-0301 Memory corruption in Cisco NX-OS unknown Critical 9.8
• CVE-2016-1453 Memory corruption in n/a Critical 9.8
• CVE-2016-1341 Hardcoded credentials in n/a Critical 9.8

All Cisco Nx-Os vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as GHSA-qg8x-2gcc-v7rf.