# CVE-2025-20262: Cisco Nexus 3000 and 9000 Series Switches Protocol Independent Multicast Version 6 Denial of Service Vulnerability

> An authenticated low-privileged remote attacker can crash the PIM6 process on Cisco Nexus switches via crafted queries, causing a denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.0 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 27 Aug 2025
- **Updated:** 27 Aug 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-3q92-5vpf-96pw

## What is CVE-2025-20262?

CVE-2025-20262 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Cisco NX-OS Software, published on 27 Aug 2025. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A vulnerability in the Protocol Independent Multicast Version 6 (PIM6) feature of Cisco Nexus 3000 Series Switches and Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches in standalone NX-OS mode could allow an authenticated, low-privileged, remote attacker to trigger a crash of the PIM6 process, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition.

This vulnerability is due to improper processing of PIM6 ephemeral data queries. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted ephemeral query to an affected device through one of the following methods: NX-API REST, NETCONF, RESTConf, gRPC, or Model Driven Telemetry. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the PIM6 process to crash and restart, causing potential adjacency flaps and resulting in a DoS of the PIM6 and ephemeral query processes.

Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-20262?


## How do I fix CVE-2025-20262?

No fix has been published for CVE-2025-20262 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2025-20262 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-20262 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-20262 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-20262 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Cisco NX-OS Software, published on 27 Aug 2025. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-20262 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Cisco NX-OS 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-2025-20262/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20262/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-20262
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-20262
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-20262

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-20262/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.