Cisco IOS XE DHCP Snooping Queue Wedge DoS Vulnerability
CVE-2025-20162 Published on May 7, 2025

A vulnerability in the DHCP snooping security feature of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a full interface queue wedge, which could result in a denial of service (DoS) condition. This vulnerability is due to improper handling of DHCP request packets. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending DHCP request packets to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause packets to wedge in the queue, creating a DoS condition for downstream devices of the affected system and requiring that the system restart to drain the queue. Note: This vulnerability can be exploited with either unicast or broadcast DHCP packets on a VLAN that does not have DHCP snooping enabled.

NVD

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2025-20162 is exploitable with network access, and does not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have no impact on confidentiality and integrity, and a high impact on availability.

Attack Vector:
NETWORK
Attack Complexity:
LOW
Privileges Required:
NONE
User Interaction:
NONE
Scope:
CHANGED
Confidentiality Impact:
NONE
Integrity Impact:
NONE
Availability Impact:
HIGH

Weakness Type

What is a Resource Exhaustion Vulnerability?

The software does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource, thereby enabling an actor to influence the amount of resources consumed, eventually leading to the exhaustion of available resources.

CVE-2025-20162 has been classified to as a Resource Exhaustion vulnerability or weakness.


Products Associated with CVE-2025-20162

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Cisco IOS XE
 

Affected Versions

Cisco IOS XE Software:

Exploit Probability

EPSS
0.46%
Percentile
63.60%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.