CVE-2022-20821 — Cisco IOS XR Open Port Vulnerability
Overview
Cisco IOS XR software health check opens TCP port 6379 by default on activation. An attacker can connect to the Redis instance on the open port and allow access to the Redis instance that is running within the NOSi container.
Vulnerability details
- CVE ID
- CVE-2022-20821
- Vulnerability
- Cisco IOS XR Open Port Vulnerability
- Vendor
- Cisco
- Affected products
- Cisco: IOS XR
- Severity
- HIGH
- Exploitation status
- Actively exploited in the wild (CISA KEV)
- Published
- 2022-05-23
Remediation guidance
CVE-2022-20821 is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog — U.S. federal civilian agencies are required to remediate it under Binding Operational Directive 22-01. Treat it as a priority for every environment.
Apply the vendor's official security update for Cisco the affected product as soon as possible. Where a patch is unavailable, apply vendor mitigations or isolate/segment exposed systems.
Hunt for indicators of compromise tied to this vulnerability and confirm logging/EDR coverage on affected assets.
Authoritative references
Remediate CVE-2022-20821 — and stay ahead of the next one
CVE-2022-20821 is listed in the CISA KEV catalog as actively exploited — treat remediation as urgent. Scan your domain free to see whether CVE-2022-20821 and other Cisco issues affect you and get a prioritized remediation report (full report from ₹999) — or stream the full feed of 1,600+ actively-exploited CVEs straight into your SOC.
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