Cisco IOS XR Software Release 7.9.2 Denial of Service Vulnerability (CVE-2025-20141)

CVE number = CVE-2025-20141

A vulnerability in the handling of specific packets that are punted from a line card to a route processor in Cisco IOS XR Software Release 7.9.2 could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause control plane traffic to stop working on multiple Cisco IOS XR platforms.

This vulnerability is due to incorrect handling of packets that are punted to the route processor. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending traffic, which must be handled by the Linux stack on the route processor, to an affected device.

A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause control plane traffic to stop working, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition.

This vulnerability affects the following Cisco products if they are running Cisco IOS XR Release 7.9.2, regardless of device configuration:

• IOS XR White box (IOSXRWBD)
• Network Convergence System (NCS) 540 Series Routers that are running an NCS540-iosxr base image
• NCS 5500 Series
• NCS 5700 Series that are running an NCS5500-iosxr base image

Cisco has released software updates that address this vulnerability.

There are no workarounds that address this vulnerability.

This advisory is available at the following link:
https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-xr792-bWfVDPY