CVE-2025-20141

A vulnerability in the handling of specific packets that are punted from a line card to a route processor in Cisco IOS XR Software Release 7.9.2 could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause control plane traffic to stop working on multiple Cisco IOS XR platforms.  This vulnerability is due to incorrect handling of packets that are punted to the route processor. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending traffic, which must be handled by the Linux stack on the route processor, to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause control plane traffic to stop working, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.4 (HIGH).

CVE-2025-20141 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.4 out of 10, rated HIGH. This is a high-severity vulnerability that should be prioritized for patching.

CVE-2025-20141 affects products from cisco, specifically: ios_xr, ncs_540-12z20g-sys-a, ncs_540-12z20g-sys-d, ncs_540-24q2c2dd-sys, ncs_540-24q8l2dd-sys, ncs_540-24z8q2c-sys, ncs_540-28z4c-sys-a, ncs_540-28z4c-sys-d, ncs_540-6z14s-sys-d, ncs_540-6z18g-sys-a, ncs_540-6z18g-sys-d, ncs_540-acc-sys, ncs_540-fh-agg, ncs_540-fh-csr-sys, ncs_540x-12z16g-sys-a, ncs_540x-12z16g-sys-d, ncs_540x-16z4g8q2c-a, ncs_540x-16z4g8q2c-d, ncs_540x-16z8q2c-d, ncs_540x-4z14g2q-a, ncs_540x-4z14g2q-d, ncs_540x-6z18g-sys-a, ncs_540x-6z18g-sys-d, ncs_540x-8z16g-sys-a, ncs_540x-8z16g-sys-d, ncs_540x-acc-sys, ncs_5501, ncs_5501-se, ncs_5502, ncs_5502-se, ncs_5504, ncs_5508, ncs_5516, ncs_55a1-24h, ncs_55a1-24q6h-s, ncs_55a1-24q6h-ss, ncs_55a1-36h, ncs_55a1-36h-se, ncs_55a1-48q6h, ncs_55a2-mod-hd-s, ncs_55a2-mod-s, ncs_55a2-mod-se-s, ncs_57b1-5dse-sys, ncs_57b1-6d24-sys, ncs_57c1-48q6-sys, ncs_57c3-mod-sys, ncs_57d2-18dd-sys. Check the affected products table above for specific version ranges.

You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.