Description

A vulnerability in the handling of management plane packets by Cisco Industrial Ethernet (IE) 1000 Series Switches could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause the device manager, SSH, or API to become inaccessible.This vulnerability is due to insufficient protection against management plane flooding attacks. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a high rate of ICMP, SSH, or HTTP traffic to an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the CPU of the device to increase, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition on the device manager web GUI, SSH, or API. Data traffic through the device is not affected.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "5.3",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-19T17:18:39.093Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-19T17:18:39.093Z",
  "executiveSummary": "This vulnerability involves insufficient protection against management plane flooding attacks within the management plane packet handling mechanisms of Cisco Industrial Ethernet (IE) 1000 Series Switches. An unauthenticated, remote attacker can exploit this flaw to induce a denial of service (DoS) condition affecting critical management interfaces, specifically the device manager, SSH, and API services. The root cause stems from inadequate rate limiting and packet processing controls for incoming management traffic, allowing malicious actors to exhaust CPU resources.\nThe impact is limited to the management plane, causing high CPU utilization that renders administrative interfaces inaccessible, while standard data plane traffic forwarding remains unaffected. Exploitation requires no authentication or special privileges, but demands network connectivity to the affected device and the ability to generate a high rate of targeted traffic. Risk implications include temporary loss of administrative oversight and configuration capabilities over affected industrial network infrastructure.\nAffected systems are restricted to Cisco Industrial Ethernet (IE) 1000 Series Switches. Mitigation relies on implementing proper network segmentation, applying access control lists (ACLs) to restrict management plane traffic, and monitoring network traffic patterns for anomalous packet rates directed at the management interfaces of the devices.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability resides in the management plane packet handling architecture of Cisco Industrial Ethernet (IE) 1000 Series Switches. Specifically, the device lacks robust protection mechanisms against management plane flooding attacks, failing to adequately filter, rate-limit, or prioritize incoming packets destined for the control and management plane.\nThe affected components include the software stacks responsible for processing Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), Secure Shell (SSH), and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) / API traffic. When an affected device is subjected to a high rate of these specific traffic types, the internal CPU is overwhelmed by interrupt requests and packet processing overhead.\nThe attack flow proceeds as follows: First, an unauthenticated, remote attacker targets the management IP address or interfaces of an affected Cisco Industrial Ethernet (IE) 1000 Series Switch. Second, the attacker transmits a sustained, high-rate payload consisting of ICMP, SSH, or HTTP traffic over the network. Third, the switch's network processor or operating system attempts to process the incoming flood within the management plane queue. Fourth, due to insufficient resource allocation controls and the absence of effective packet filtering or rate limiting, the influx exhausts the CPU resources of the routing/management processor.\nAs a direct consequence of this high CPU utilization, the device manager web GUI, SSH daemon, and API services become unresponsive or entirely inaccessible, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition. Network exposure is remote, requiring network reachability to the device's management interfaces. Authentication and privilege requirements are entirely absent, as the vector relies on raw packet volume rather than credentialed access. Post-exploitation impact is strictly confined to management plane unavailability; data plane switching and routing functionality continue to operate normally without packet loss of transit data."
}