Security News > 2020 > October > Cisco warns of attacks targeting high severity router vulnerability

Cisco today warned of attacks actively targeting the CVE-2020-3118 high severity vulnerability found to affect multiple carrier-grade routers that run the company's Cisco IOS XR Software.
The IOS XR Network OS is deployed on several Cisco router platforms including NCS 540 & 560, NCS 5500, 8000, and ASR 9000 series routers.
"In October 2020, the Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team received reports of attempted exploitation of this vulnerability in the wild," the updated advisory reads.
Attackers could exploit the vulnerability by sending a malicious Cisco Discovery Protocol packet to devices running a vulnerable IOS XR version.
Luckily, even though this Cisco Discovery Protocol Format String Vulnerability could lead to remote code execution, it can only be exploited by unauthenticated adjacent attackers in the same broadcast domain as the vulnerable devices.
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Related Vulnerability
DATE | CVE | VULNERABILITY TITLE | RISK |
---|---|---|---|
2020-02-05 | CVE-2020-3118 | Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability in Cisco IOS XR A vulnerability in the Cisco Discovery Protocol implementation for Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a reload on an affected device. | 8.8 |