CVE-2026-20051

Cisco Nexus 3600-R and 9500-R Series Switching Platforms Layer 2 Loop Denial of Service Vulnerability

Severity
High 7.4
CVSS 3.1
Exploited
Not listed
EPSS
0.002
5.2th percentile
Discovered by
Third party
Vendor-published field
Published
Feb 25, 2026
Assigned by cisco

Description

A vulnerability with the Ethernet VPN (EVPN) Layer 2 ingress packet processing of Cisco Nexus 3600 Platform Switches and Cisco Nexus 9500-R Series Switching Platforms could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to trigger a Layer 2 traffic loop. This vulnerability is due to a logic error when processing a crafted Layer 2 ingress frame. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a stream of crafted Ethernet frames through the targeted device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause a Layer 2 Virtual eXtensible LAN (VxLAN) traffic loop, which, in turn, could result in a denial of service (DoS) condition. This Layer 2 loop could oversubscribe the bandwidth on network interfaces, which would result in all data plane traffic being dropped. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must be Layer 2-adjacent to the affected device. Note: To stop active exploitation of this vulnerability, manual intervention is required to both stop the crafted traffic and flap all involved network interfaces. For additional assistance if a Layer 2 loop that is related to this vulnerability is suspected, contact the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) or the proper support provider. 

Weakness: CWE-457

Affected products

Vendor Product Category Matched by
Cisco Cisco NX-OS Software Routing & Switching cna-assigner
Vendor-reported products (1)
  • Cisco · Cisco NX-OS Software

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