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UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityAnalyzed

CVE-2025-20115

A vulnerability in confederation implementation for the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) in Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition.

HIGH 8.6EPSS 0.88%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.88%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

A vulnerability in confederation implementation for the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) in Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition. This vulnerability is due to a memory corruption that occurs when a BGP update is created with an AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE attribute that has 255 autonomous system numbers (AS numbers). An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted BGP update message, or the network could be designed in such a manner that the AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE attribute grows to 255 AS numbers or more. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause memory corruption, which may cause the BGP process to restart, resulting in a DoS condition. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must control a BGP confederation speaker within the same autonomous system as the victim, or the network must be designed in such a manner that the AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE attribute grows to 255 AS numbers or more.

CVSS 3.1
8.6 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS
0.88% probability · 57th percentile
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-120
Affected
cisco/ios xr
Source
psirt@cisco.com

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.