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 in Cisco Industrial Ethernet 1000 Series Switches. It involves insufficient protection against management plane flooding attacks, allowing an unauthenticated remote attacker to cause denial of service by overwhelming the device manager, SSH, or API. The vulnerability does not affect data traffic through the device. Multiple specific firmware versions are affected.
CVSS v3.1
Score 5.3medium
Affected software
Cisco
Cisco Industrial Ethernet Switches
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 arises from the handling of management plane packets in Cisco Industrial Ethernet 1000 Series Switches. An attacker can exploit it by sending a high rate of ICMP, SSH, or HTTP traffic, causing the device's CPU usage to spike and rendering the device manager web GUI, SSH, or API inaccessible. This results in a denial of service condition on management interfaces without impacting data traffic forwarding.
Potential Impact
Successful exploitation leads to denial of service on the device's management interfaces (device manager web GUI, SSH, API) due to increased CPU utilization. Data traffic forwarding remains unaffected, so network operations continue despite management plane disruption.
Mitigation Recommendations
Patch status is not yet confirmed — check the vendor advisory for current remediation guidance. No official fix or patch links are provided in the available data. Until a patch is available, consider limiting management plane exposure and rate-limiting ICMP, SSH, and HTTP traffic to the device if possible.
Technical Details
- Data Version
- 5.2
- Assigner Short Name
- cisco
- Date Reserved
- 2025-10-08T11:59:15.392Z
- Cvss Version
- 3.1
- State
- PUBLISHED
Threat ID: 6a85d85eacd9273b49511c73
Added to database: 08/19/2026, 16:22:54 UTC
Last enriched: 09/11/2026, 08:04:36 UTC
Last updated: 10/04/2026, 10:02:26 UTC
Views: 78
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