NVD / CVE Program· CNA cisco

CVE-2022-20846: Cisco IOS XR Software Cisco Discovery Protocol Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Monitor (action score 17/100)

The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 0.99% (FIRST EPSS); higher than 62.7% of all records.
Someone on the same network segment can trigger it. No account or password is required. No user action is required. No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
According to the record, no fixed version is available yet.

Low priority for now. Update when a fix is released; follow the vendor's advisory.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

A vulnerability in the Cisco Discovery Protocol implementation for Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause the Cisco Discovery Protocol process to reload on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to a heap buffer overflow in certain Cisco Discovery Protocol messages. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malicious Cisco Discovery Protocol packet to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a heap overflow, which could cause the Cisco Discovery Protocol process to reload on the device. The bytes that can be written in the buffer overflow are restricted, which limits remote code execution.Note: Cisco Discovery Protocol is a Layer 2 protocol. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must be in the same broadcast domain as the affected device (Layer 2 adjacent).  Cisco has released software updates that address this vulnerability. There are no workarounds that address this vulnerability.This advisory is part of the September 2022 release of the Cisco IOS XR Software Security Advisory Bundled Publication. For a complete list of the advisories and links to them, see .

MediumCVSS 4.3 · v3.1—No exploit No fix recorded

BDU:2022-06325

Published: Nov 15, 2024
Updated: Jun 17, 2026
EPSS: 0.9% · 62th percentile
CWE: CWE-120

Report tools

JSON

Action score

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS: 17 / 40 · 4.3 / 10
CISA KEV: 0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS: 0 / 30 · 0.9%

CISA SSVC decision

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: partial

Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.

CNA vs NVD score

NVD: —
CNA · cisco: 4.3; NVD has not scored this yet; the score shown is the CNA’s.

The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.

Get told when this record changes

Not in KEV: no record of exploitation in the wild
No public exploit code on record
No fixed version yet

If any of these changes, we'll tell you in the daily email digest.

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Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

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Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

Vendor	Product	CPE
cisco	ios xr	cpe:2.3:o:cisco:ios_xr

Affected versions

NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.

cisco ios xr6.5.1
cisco ios xr6.5.15
cisco ios xr6.5.2
cisco ios xr6.5.25
cisco ios xr6.5.26
cisco ios xr6.5.28
cisco ios xr6.5.29
cisco ios xr6.5.3
cisco ios xr6.5.31
cisco ios xr6.5.32
cisco ios xr6.5.90
cisco ios xr6.5.92
cisco ios xr6.5.93
cisco ios xr6.6.1
cisco ios xr6.6.11
cisco ios xr6.6.12
cisco ios xr6.6.2
cisco ios xr6.6.25
cisco ios xr6.6.3
cisco ios xr6.6.4

Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (cisco). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

Cisco Cisco IOS XR Software
- 6.5.3, 6.5.29, 6.5.1, 6.6.1, 6.5.2, 6.5.92, 6.5.15, 6.6.2, 7.0.1, 6.6.25, 6.5.26, 6.6.11 … (+28)affected

Same product

cisco: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

CVE-2020-3118Cisco IOS XR Software Cisco Discovery Protocol Format String VulnerabilityKEV
69This week
CVE-2020-3569Cisco IOS XR Software DVMRP Memory Exhaustion VulnerabilitiesKEV
65This week
CVE-2020-3566Cisco IOS XR Software DVMRP Memory Exhaustion VulnerabilityKEV
65This week

Published before and after this one in the same product

← EarlierCVE-2024-20483Sep 11, 2024 · Cisco IOS XR PON Controller Command Injection Vulnerabilities
28Monitor
← EarlierCVE-2024-20489Sep 11, 2024 · Cisco Routed Passive Optical Network Cleartext Password Vulnerability
22Monitor
Later →CVE-2022-20849Nov 15, 2024 · Cisco IOS XR Software Broadband Network Gateway PPPoE Denial of Service Vulnerability
24Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

No fix version is recorded for this entry. Check the references for vendor advisories.

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

No dated events beyond publication.

No history yet (it accumulates with the daily EPSS job).

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

No commit or PR link among the references.

Credits

All researchers

Finders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.

No credits in the CNA record.

Variant candidates

Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.

CVE-2025-20115117 days apartCisco IOS XR Software Border Gateway Protocol Denial of Service Vulnerability
34Monitor

Chain candidates

An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.

—

Bug bounty scope

No known public program.

Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).

Technical details

Attack conditions

Someone on the same network segment can trigger it.
No account or password is required.
No user action is required.
No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.

If successful

Confidentiality: none
Integrity: none
Availability: low · the service can be disrupted

Attack vector: Adjacent
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: None
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality impact: None
Integrity impact: None
Availability impact: Low

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-120 · Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input ('Classic Buffer Overflow')

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

nvd-secondary

Root cause

When data is copied, the source length is not compared with the size of the destination buffer. Excess data overwrites adjacent memory.

The bug in code

The whole CWE-120 class

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

Vulnerable

1char buf[256];
2memcpy(buf, pkt->data, pkt->len);

Fixed

1char buf[256];
2if (pkt->len > sizeof(buf)) {
3  return -EINVAL;
4}
5memcpy(buf, pkt->data, pkt->len);

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

Attack patterns (CAPEC)

ATT&CK techniques

—

Change log

No changes recorded on tracked fields yet. Score, KEV, exploit maturity and fix status changes appear here.

References

sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-iosxr-bng-Gmg5Gxt

Show all references (2 more)

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

All records