CVE-2023-20089
Cisco Nx-Os 15.2\(1g\) … 16.0\(1j\)
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2023-20089 is a high-severity Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value (CWE-789) vulnerability in Cisco Nx-Os. Its CVSS base score is 7.4 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 22th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-24268
Vulnerability Data
A vulnerability in the Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) feature for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Fabric Switches in Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Mode could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause a memory leak, which could result in an unexpected…
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reload of the device. This vulnerability is due to incorrect error checking when parsing ingress LLDP packets. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a steady stream of crafted LLDP packets to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a memory leak, which could result in a denial of service (DoS) condition when the device unexpectedly reloads. Note: This vulnerability cannot be exploited by transit traffic through the device. The crafted LLDP packet must be targeted to a directly connected interface, and the attacker must be in the same broadcast domain as the affected device (Layer 2 adjacent). In addition, the attack surface for this vulnerability can be reduced by disabling LLDP on interfaces where it is not required.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure SDLC practices directly prevent coding flaws that trust unvalidated size values for allocations.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Security testing in development can detect and block excessive allocation flaws before deployment.
Secure development lifecycle includes input validation and size checks that prevent unbounded allocations.
Application security requirements mandate bounds checking on size parameters to avoid excessive memory allocation.
Secure architecture principles require resource-limit enforcement that mitigates uncontrolled memory requests.
Secure coding standards directly prohibit allocating memory from untrusted size values without validation.
Capacity management may detect memory exhaustion symptoms but does not prevent the coding flaw.