CVE-2025-20159: Cisco IOS XR Software

Medium severity, CVSS 5.3. EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

A vulnerability in the management interface access control list (ACL) processing feature in Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass configured ACLs for the SSH, NetConf, and gRPC features. This vulnerability exists because management interface ACLs have not been supported on Cisco IOS XR Software Packet I/O infrastructure platforms for Linux-handled features such as SSH, NetConf, or gRPC. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by attempting to send traffic to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to bypass an ingress ACL that is applied on the management interface of the affected device.

Affected products

• Cisco Cisco IOS XR Software: version 6.6.1 only; version 6.5.3 only; version 7.0.1 only; version 6.6.11 only; version 6.5.1 only; version 6.5.2 only; …

Published 2025-09-10. Last modified 2026-09-26.