Cisco IOS XR Software for ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers PPPoE Denial of Service Vulnerability

A vulnerability in the PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE) termination feature of Cisco IOS XR Software for Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to crash the ppp_ma process, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition.

This vulnerability is due to the improper handling of malformed PPPoE packets that are received on a router that is running Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) functionality with PPPoE termination on a Lightspeed-based or Lightspeed-Plus-based line card. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted PPPoE packet to an affected line card interface that does not terminate PPPoE. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to crash the ppp_ma process, resulting in a DoS condition for PPPoE traffic across the router.

Cisco has released software updates that address this vulnerability. There are no workarounds that address this vulnerability.

This advisory is available at the following link:
https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-iosxr-pppma-JKWFgneW [“https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-iosxr-pppma-JKWFgneW”]

This advisory is part of the March 2024 release of the Cisco IOS XR Software Security Advisory Bundled Publication. For a complete list of the advisories and links to them, see Cisco Event Response: March 2024 Semiannual Cisco IOS XR Software Security Advisory Bundled Publication [“https://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/viewErp.x?alertId=ERP-75299”].