# CVE-2023-20176: Denial of service in Cisco Aironet Access Point Software

> An unauthenticated remote attacker can cause a denial of service on Cisco access points by sending high-rate traffic to disrupt DTLS sessions.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/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:** 27 Sep 2023
- **Updated:** 2 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-68hh-p8m2-hpx3

## What is CVE-2023-20176?

CVE-2023-20176 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Aironet Access Point Software, published on 27 Sep 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability in the networking component of Cisco access point (AP) software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a temporary disruption of service.

 This vulnerability is due to overuse of AP resources. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by connecting to an AP on an affected device as a wireless client and sending a high rate of traffic over an extended period of time. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the Datagram TLS (DTLS) session to tear down and reset, causing a denial of service (DoS) condition.

Weakness: CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-20176?

It affects 5 products.


Products: Cisco Catalyst 9124 Firmware, Cisco Catalyst 9130 Firmware, Cisco Catalyst 9136 Firmware, Cisco Catalyst 9164 Firmware, Cisco Catalyst 9166 Firmware.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-20176?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-20176 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2023-20176 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-20176 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-20176 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-20176 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Aironet Access Point Software, published on 27 Sep 2023. 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-2023-20176 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Aironet Access Point Software. 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-2023-20176/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-20176/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-20176
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-20176
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-20176

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-20176/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.