Cisco IOS XR Software IPv6 Flood Denial of Service Vulnerability

A vulnerability in the IPv6 protocol handling of the management interfaces of Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause an IPv6 flood on the management interface network of an affected device.

The vulnerability exists because the software incorrectly forwards IPv6 packets that have an IPv6 node-local multicast group address destination and are received on the management interfaces. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by connecting to the same network as the management interfaces and injecting IPv6 packets that have an IPv6 node-local multicast group address destination. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause an IPv6 flood on the corresponding network. Depending on the number of Cisco IOS XR Software nodes on that network segment, exploitation could cause excessive network traffic, resulting in network degradation or a denial of service (DoS) condition.

Cisco has released software updates that address this vulnerability. There are workarounds that address this vulnerability.

This advisory is available at the following link:
https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-xripv6-spJem78K [“https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-xripv6-spJem78K”]