CVE-2026-20177: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Cisco Cisco Industrial Ethernet Switches
CVE-2026-20177 is a medium severity vulnerability affecting Cisco Industrial Ethernet 1000 Series Switches. It involves insufficient protection against management plane flooding attacks, allowing unauthenticated remote attackers to cause denial of service conditions on the device manager web GUI, SSH, or API by sending high rates of ICMP, SSH, or HTTP traffic. The vulnerability does not impact data traffic through the device. No official patch or remediation level has been confirmed yet.
AI Analysis
Technical Summary
This vulnerability in Cisco Industrial Ethernet 1000 Series Switches arises from inadequate handling of management plane packets, permitting unauthenticated remote attackers to flood the management plane with ICMP, SSH, or HTTP traffic. This causes increased CPU utilization, leading to denial of service conditions affecting the device manager web GUI, SSH, or API accessibility. Data traffic forwarding remains unaffected. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 5.3 (medium severity), reflecting network attack vector, low attack complexity, no privileges required, no user interaction, and impact limited to availability.
Potential Impact
Successful exploitation results in denial of service on management interfaces (device manager web GUI, SSH, API) due to resource exhaustion from management plane flooding. Data traffic through the switch is not impacted, so network forwarding functions continue operating normally.
Mitigation Recommendations
Patch status is not yet confirmed — check the vendor advisory for current remediation guidance. Until a fix is available, consider limiting management plane exposure to untrusted networks and rate-limiting management plane traffic where possible to reduce risk of flooding attacks.
CVE-2026-20177: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Cisco Cisco Industrial Ethernet Switches
Description
CVE-2026-20177 is a medium severity vulnerability affecting Cisco Industrial Ethernet 1000 Series Switches. It involves insufficient protection against management plane flooding attacks, allowing unauthenticated remote attackers to cause denial of service conditions on the device manager web GUI, SSH, or API by sending high rates of ICMP, SSH, or HTTP traffic. The vulnerability does not impact data traffic through the device. No official patch or remediation level has been confirmed yet.
CVSS v3.1
Score 5.3medium
Affected software
pkg:github/cisco/industrial-ethernet-switchesRun on your own infrastructure? Check whether these packages are installed with threat-finder — our free open-source scanner.
AI-Powered Analysis
Machine-generated threat intelligence
Technical Analysis
This vulnerability in Cisco Industrial Ethernet 1000 Series Switches arises from inadequate handling of management plane packets, permitting unauthenticated remote attackers to flood the management plane with ICMP, SSH, or HTTP traffic. This causes increased CPU utilization, leading to denial of service conditions affecting the device manager web GUI, SSH, or API accessibility. Data traffic forwarding remains unaffected. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 5.3 (medium severity), reflecting network attack vector, low attack complexity, no privileges required, no user interaction, and impact limited to availability.
Potential Impact
Successful exploitation results in denial of service on management interfaces (device manager web GUI, SSH, API) due to resource exhaustion from management plane flooding. Data traffic through the switch is not impacted, so network forwarding functions continue operating normally.
Mitigation Recommendations
Patch status is not yet confirmed — check the vendor advisory for current remediation guidance. Until a fix is available, consider limiting management plane exposure to untrusted networks and rate-limiting management plane traffic where possible to reduce risk of flooding attacks.
Technical Details
- Data Version
- 5.2
- Assigner Short Name
- cisco
- Date Reserved
- 2025-10-08T11:59:15.392Z
- Cvss Version
- 3.1
- State
- PUBLISHED
- Remediation Level
- null
Threat ID: 6a85d85eacd9273b49511c73
Added to database: 08/19/2026, 16:22:54 UTC
Last enriched: 08/19/2026, 16:41:06 UTC
Last updated: 08/19/2026, 23:21:03 UTC
Views: 6
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