CVE-2026-20221: Null Dereference (CVSS 5.8)

Description

Multiple Cisco products are affected by a vulnerability in the generic routing encapsulation (GRE) tunnel decapsulation feature of the Snort 3 Detection Engine that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause an unexpected restart of the Snort 3 Detection Engine. This vulnerability is due to improper handling of nested GRE traffic. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted GRE payload through an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to trigger an unexpected reload of the Snort 3 Detection Engine, resulting in either a bypass or denial of service (DoS) condition, depending on device configuration. For more information, see the section of this advisory. The Snort 3 Detection Engine will restart automatically. No manual intervention is required.

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CVSS v3.1 Score

5.8

MEDIUM

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

EPSS — Exploit Prediction

0.0058

Probability of exploitation

0.48%

Percentile rank

EPSS estimates the probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. A higher score means more likely to be exploited.

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-476 CWE-476

References

Other References

https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-snort3-gre-JNpMHrTv

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2026-20221? +

Multiple Cisco products are affected by a vulnerability in the generic routing encapsulation (GRE) tunnel decapsulation feature of the Snort 3 Detection Engine that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause an unexpected restart of the Snort 3 Detection Engine. This vulnerability is due to improper handling of nested GRE traffic. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted GRE payload through an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to trigger an unexpected reload of the Snort 3 Detection Engine, resulting in either a bypass or denial of service (DoS) condition, depending on device configuration. For more information, see the section of this advisory. The Snort 3 Detection Engine will restart automatically. No manual intervention is required. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 5.8 (MEDIUM).

How severe is CVE-2026-20221? +

CVE-2026-20221 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.8 out of 10, rated MEDIUM. This is a medium-severity vulnerability that should be remediated as part of regular maintenance. The EPSS score is 0.0058, placing it in the 0th percentile for exploitation probability.

How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2026-20221? +

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.

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