CVE-2026-20118Cisco IOS-XR NCS 5500 and NCS 5700 Egress Packet Network Interfaces Aligner Interrupt Denial of Service Vulnerability
- 6.8MediumCVSS base score
- 0.37%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 69% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
A vulnerability in the handling of an Egress Packet Network Interface (EPNI) Aligner interrupt in Cisco IOS XR Software for Cisco Network Convergence System (NCS) 5500 Series with NC57 line cards and Cisco NCS 5700 Routers and Cisco IOS XR Software for Third Party Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause the network processing unit (NPU) and ASIC to stop processing, preventing traffic from traversing the interface. This vulnerability is due to the corruption of packets in specific cases when an EPNI Aligner interrupt is triggered while an affected device is experiencing heavy transit traffic. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a continuous flow of crafted packets to an interface of the affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause persistent, heavy packet loss, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. Note: If active exploitation of this vulnerability is suspected, contact the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) or your contracted maintenance provider. Cisco has assigned this security advisory a Security Impact Rating (SIR) of High rather than Medium as the score indicates. This change was made because the affected device operates within a critical network segment where compromise could lead to significant disruption or exposure, thereby elevating the overall risk beyond the base technical severity.
Timeline
ID reserved
By cisco
- 5 months later
· 5 months later
Published
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 | Medium6.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Awaiting Analysis | 3.1 | Medium6.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.37% · top 69% of all CVEs (13 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: Medium 6.8.
Affected products
- affected 7.9.1
- affected 7.10.1
- affected 7.9.2
- affected 7.11.1
- affected 7.10.2
- affected 24.1.1
- affected 7.11.2
- affected 24.2.1
- affected 24.1.2
- affected 24.3.1
- affected 24.4.1
- affected 24.2.11
- affected 24.2.2
- affected 7.11.21
- affected 24.2.20
- affected 24.3.2
- affected 25.1.1
- affected 24.3.20
- affected 24.4.2
- affected 25.1.2
- affected 24.3.30
- affected 24.4.30
- affected 24.2.21
What to do
Exploitation: The Cisco PSIRT is not aware of any public announcements or malicious use of the vulnerability that is described in this advisory.
References
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)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-11224 (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://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-20118)Record last updated .