# CVE-2025-20196: Denial of service in Cisco IOS XE Software

> Unauthenticated remote attackers can cause a denial of service in Cisco IOx by sending crafted HTTP requests, requiring manual process restart.

- **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:** 7 May 2025
- **Updated:** 7 May 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-mqph-g74f-5j5f

## What is CVE-2025-20196?

CVE-2025-20196 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Ios Xe, published on 7 May 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability in the Cisco IOx application hosting environment of Cisco IOS Software and Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause the Cisco IOx application hosting environment to stop responding, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition.

 This vulnerability is due to the improper handling of HTTP requests. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted HTTP requests to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the Cisco IOx application hosting environment to stop responding. The IOx process will need to be manually restarted to recover services.

Weakness: CWE-307 (Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-20196?

It affects 7 products.


Products: Cisco 807 Industrial Integrated Services Router Firmware, Cisco 809 Industrial Integrated Services Router Firmware, Cisco 829 Industrial Integrated Services Router Firmware, Cisco Cgr1000 Firmware, Cisco Ic3000 Industrial Compute Gateway Firmware, Cisco Ios Xe, Cisco Ir510 Wpan Firmware.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-20196?

No fix has been published for CVE-2025-20196 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2025-20196 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-20196 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Cisco Ios Xe

- [CVE-2023-20076](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-20076/): Cisco IOx Application Hosting Environment Command Injection Vulnerability (high 7.2)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-20196 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-20196 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Cisco Ios Xe, published on 7 May 2025. 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-2025-20196 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco Ios Xe. 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-2025-20196/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20196/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-20196
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-20196
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-20196

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20196/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.