CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2025-20316

Improper Access Control

Published: Sep 24, 2025 | Modified: Sep 24, 2025
CVSS 3.x
N/A
Source:
NVD
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

A vulnerability in the access control list (ACL) programming of Cisco IOS XE Software for Cisco Catalyst 9500X and 9600X Series Switches could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass a configured ACL on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to the flooding of traffic from an unlearned MAC address on a switch virtual interface (SVI) that has an egress ACL applied. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by causing the VLAN to flush its MAC address table. This condition can also occur if the MAC address table is full. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to bypass an egress ACL on an affected device.

Weakness

The product does not restrict or incorrectly restricts access to a resource from an unauthorized actor.

Extended Description

Access control involves the use of several protection mechanisms such as:

When any mechanism is not applied or otherwise fails, attackers can compromise the security of the product by gaining privileges, reading sensitive information, executing commands, evading detection, etc. There are two distinct behaviors that can introduce access control weaknesses:

Potential Mitigations

  • Compartmentalize the system to have “safe” areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area.
  • Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.

References