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High

DoS in Cisco ISE RADIUS rejected-endpoint handling

IdentifiersCVE-2025-20343CWE-697· Incorrect Comparison

CVE-2025-20343 is a high-severity denial-of-service vulnerability in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE). The issue is caused by a logic error in the RADIUS suppression feature associated with the setting "Reject RADIUS requests from clients with repeated failures." When Cisco ISE processes a RADIUS Access-Request for a MAC address that is already in the rejected endpoint state, it can mishandle a specific sequence of crafted requests and enter an unexpected state that causes the affected ISE node to restart. The vulnerable condition is only reachable when the suppression feature is enabled and the targeted MAC address has already been marked as rejected. Reported affected versions include Cisco ISE 3.4.0, 3.4 Patch 1, 3.4 Patch 2, and 3.4 Patch 3.

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ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.

Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Successful exploitation allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to trigger an unexpected restart of the affected Cisco ISE node, resulting in a denial-of-service condition. This disrupts authentication services handled by that node, including RADIUS-backed access control workflows, and can affect both standalone and distributed deployments where the vulnerable feature is enabled.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

If immediate patching is not possible, disable the setting "Reject RADIUS requests from clients with repeated failures" to prevent the vulnerable code path from being exercised, if operationally acceptable. Restrict network access to the Cisco ISE RADIUS service to trusted clients only, and limit exposure of UDP ports 1645 and 1812 to authorized infrastructure. Monitor for anomalous sequences of RADIUS Access-Request messages targeting MAC addresses already in a rejected state.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Apply Cisco's fixed software updates for Cisco ISE. The provided content states that Cisco released patches for CVE-2025-20343 and that affected versions include Cisco ISE 3.4.0 through 3.4 Patch 3. Organizations should upgrade to the Cisco-provided remediated release or patch level referenced in Cisco's advisory for this CVE.
PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

No valid public exploits. Mallory filtered out 3 candidates as fakes, detection scripts, or README-only repos.

VALID 0 / 3 TOTALView more in app

All candidate exploits were filtered out by Mallory's validation.

EXPOSURE SURFACE

Affected products & vendors

Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.

VendorProductType
Cisco SystemsIdentity Services Engineapplication

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What this page doesn’t show

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Exposure mapping

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Threat actor evidence

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Associated malware

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Detection signatures

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Vendor-by-vendor mapping

Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.

Social activity8

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