CVE-2023-20089
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Fabric Switches in ACI Mode Link Layer Discovery Protocol Memory Leak Denial of Service Vulnerability
- Published
- Updated
- Reserved
- Assigned by
- cisco
Description
A vulnerability in the Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) feature for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Fabric Switches in Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Mode could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause a memory leak, which could result in an unexpected reload of the device. This vulnerability is due to incorrect error checking when parsing ingress LLDP packets. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a steady stream of crafted LLDP packets to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a memory leak, which could result in a denial of service (DoS) condition when the device unexpectedly reloads. Note: This vulnerability cannot be exploited by transit traffic through the device. The crafted LLDP packet must be targeted to a directly connected interface, and the attacker must be in the same broadcast domain as the affected device (Layer 2 adjacent). In addition, the attack surface for this vulnerability can be reduced by disabling LLDP on interfaces where it is not required.
Timeline
ID reserved
By cisco
- 4 months later
· 4 months later
Published
- 20 months later
· 20 months later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| ciscoCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High7.4 | CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | Medium6.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.30% · top 78% of all CVEs (7 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.4.
Weakness
Affected products
Cisco · Cisco NX-OS System Software in ACI Mode
- affected n/a
What to do
Exploitation: The Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) is not aware of any public announcements or malicious use of the vulnerability that is described in this advisory.
References (1)
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://trackcve.app/cve/CVE-2023-20089)Record last updated .