CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-34737 — Cisco Ios Xr security vulnerability

High CVSS 7.5

A vulnerability in the DHCP version 4 (DHCPv4) server feature of Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to trigger a crash of the dhcpd process, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. This vulnerability exists because certain DHCPv4 messages are improperly validated when they are processed by an affected device. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malformed DHCPv4 message to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a NULL pointer dereference, resulting in a crash of the dhcpd process. While the dhcpd process is restarting, which may take up to approximately two minutes, DHCPv4 server services are unavailable on the affected device. This could temporarily prevent network access to clients that join the network during that time period. Note: Only the dhcpd process crashes and eventually restarts automatically. The router does not reload.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.5 (3.1)
Published
2021-09-09
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
operating-system
Weaknesses
CWE-476

Affected products

  • cisco / ios_xr

Showing 1 representative product identities from 12 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Buffer bounds, memory safety, and memory corruption

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Check exposure

  • Identify affected native-code versions, build flags, architectures, parsers, codecs, drivers, and input paths in all shipped artifacts.
  • Determine whether untrusted data reaches the affected routine and the process privilege, sandbox, and network exposure.
  • Confirm statically linked, vendored, firmware, and platform-provided copies, not only package-manager records.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the maintained upstream correction or replace the affected component, then rebuild every dependent artifact from clean inputs.
  • Adopt bounds-checked interfaces, validated sizes and integer conversions, clear ownership, and memory-safe components where practical.
  • Enable supported compiler and runtime hardening and add sanitized tests and fuzz regression seeds derived from non-weaponized fixtures.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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