CVE-2026-20280
HighCVSS 8.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk21th percentile - higher than 21% of all known CVEs
Summary
A vulnerability in Cisco IOS XR Software was discovered during an internal security review. It relates to improper checking or handling of exceptional conditions, classified as CWE-703.
Risk Assessment
The vulnerability may lead to unexpected system behavior, potentially allowing an attacker to cause disruption or privilege escalation, though details are not disclosed.
Recommendation
Apply Cisco IOS XR software updates that include security hardening fixes.
Other vulnerabilities in Cisco IOS XR Software
See all- CVE-2017-6731High
A vulnerability in Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP) ingress packet processing for Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause the MSDP session to be unexpectedly reset, leading to a short denial of service (DoS) condition. The MSDP session will restart within a few seconds.
- CVE-2017-6728High
A vulnerability in the CLI of Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker to execute arbitrary code at the root privilege level on an affected system, due to Incorrect Permissions.
- CVE-2016-9205High
A vulnerability in the HTTP 2.0 request handling code of Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause the Event Management Service daemon (emsd) to crash, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition.
- CVE-2020-3569HighActively exploited
Multiple vulnerabilities in the Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP) feature of Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to immediately crash the IGMP process or cause memory exhaustion and eventual crash. This is due to incorrect handling of IGMP packets.
- CVE-2020-3566HighActively exploited
A vulnerability in the Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP) feature of Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to exhaust process memory of an affected device. This is due to insufficient queue management for IGMP packets.
- CVE-2026-20278High
A vulnerability in Cisco IOS XR Software was discovered during an internal security review. It relates to improper neutralization issues, classified as CWE-707.
- CVE-2026-20277High
A vulnerability in Cisco IOS XR Software was discovered during an internal security review. It relates to protection mechanism failure issues, classified as CWE-693.
- CVE-2026-20276High
A vulnerability in Cisco IOS XR Software was discovered during an internal security review. It relates to insufficient control flow management issues, classified as CWE-691.
- CVE-2026-20275High
A vulnerability in Cisco IOS XR Software was discovered during an internal security review. It relates to incorrect calculation issues, classified as CWE-682.
- CVE-2026-20074High
A vulnerability in the IS-IS multi-instance routing feature of Cisco IOS XR Software allows an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause an unexpected restart of the IS-IS process. The issue is due to insufficient input validation of incoming IS-IS packets.
Original NVD description (English source)
As part of Cisco's ongoing commitment to proactive security and product quality, the Cisco IOS XR Software engineering team has conducted a comprehensive internal security review. This review resulted in a software hardening releases that address multiple internally discovered vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities tracked by CVE-2026-20280 are related to improper checking or handling of exceptional condition issues that are grouped under the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) CWE-703.