# CVE-2023-20251: Denial of service in Cisco Mobility Express

> An unauthenticated adjacent attacker can cause a device reboot via memory leaks by triggering multiple client connections, resulting in denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.1 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 27 Sep 2023
- **Updated:** 2 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-96j4-p2p4-vfgj

## What is CVE-2023-20251?

CVE-2023-20251 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Mobility Express, published on 27 Sep 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 memory buffer of Cisco Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) AireOS Software could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause memory leaks that could eventually lead to a device reboot.

 This vulnerability is due to memory leaks caused by multiple clients connecting under specific conditions. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by causing multiple wireless clients to attempt to connect to an access point (AP) on an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the affected device to reboot after a significant amount of time, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition.

Weakness: CWE-119 (Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer), CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-20251?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Cisco Mobility Express Software.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-20251?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-20251 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2023-20251 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-20251 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Mobility Express

- [CVE-2018-0226](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-0226/): Privilege escalation in Cisco Aironet 1800, 2800, and 3800 Series Access Points (high 7.5)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-20251 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-20251 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Mobility Express, published on 27 Sep 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-20251 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Mobility Express. 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-2023-20251/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-20251/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-20251
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-20251
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-20251

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-20251/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.