CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2022-20846 — Cisco Ios Xr security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 4.3

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 adv…

Severity
Medium
CVSS
4.3 (3.1)
Published
2024-11-15
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
operating-system
Weaknesses
CWE-120

Affected products

  • cisco / ios_xr / 6.5.1
  • cisco / ios_xr / 6.5.2
  • cisco / ios_xr / 6.5.3
  • cisco / ios_xr / 6.5.15
  • cisco / ios_xr / 6.5.25
  • cisco / ios_xr / 6.5.26

Showing 6 representative product identities from 60 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Buffer bounds, memory safety, and memory corruption

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

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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