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Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

CVE-2023-20251

Medium
6.1/10

Summary

A vulnerability in the memory buffer of Cisco Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) AireOS Software could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause memory leaks that could eventually lead to a device reboot. This vulnerability is due to memory leaks caused by multiple clients connecting under specific conditions. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by causing multiple wireless clients to attempt to connect to an access point (AP) on an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the affected device to reboot after a significant amount of time, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition.

  • HIGH
  • ADJACENT_NETWORK
  • NONE
  • CHANGED
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • HIGH

CWE-401 - Missing release of memory after effective lifetime (memory leak)

'Missing release of memory after effective lifetime (memory leak)' is a weakness that occurs when software doesn't effectively release allocated memory after it is used. If not addressed, this enables attackers to launch denial of service attacks (by crashing or hanging the program) or take advantage of other unexpected behavior resulting from low memory conditions.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published