Cisco IOS XE EF ARP DoS on ASR 903 RSP3C
CVE-2025-20189 Published on May 7, 2025

A vulnerability in the Cisco Express Forwarding functionality of Cisco IOS XE Software for Cisco ASR 903 Aggregation Services Routers with Route Switch Processor 3 (RSP3C) could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to trigger a denial of service (DoS) condition. This vulnerability is due to improper memory management when Cisco IOS XE Software is processing Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) messages. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted ARP messages at a high rate over a period of time to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to exhaust system resources, which eventually triggers a reload of the active route switch processor (RSP). If a redundant RSP is not present, the router reloads.

NVD

Vulnerability Analysis

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

Weakness Type

Mismatched Memory Management Routines

The application attempts to return a memory resource to the system, but it calls a release function that is not compatible with the function that was originally used to allocate that resource.


Products Associated with CVE-2025-20189

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Cisco IOS XE
 

Affected Versions

Cisco IOS XE Software:

Exploit Probability

EPSS
0.10%
Percentile
28.21%

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.