A vulnerability in the implementation of the Intermediate System–to–Intermediate System (IS–IS) routing protocol functionality in Cisco IOS XR Software could allow an unauthenticated attacker who is in the same IS–IS area to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition. The vulnerability is due to incorrect processing of crafted IS–IS link-state protocol data units (PDUs). An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted link-state PDU to an affected system to be processed.

A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause all routers within the IS–IS area to unexpectedly restart the IS–IS process, resulting in a DoS condition. This vulnerability affects Cisco devices if they are running a vulnerable release of Cisco IOS XR Software earlier than Release 6.6.3 and are configured with the IS-IS routing protocol. Cisco has confirmed that this vulnerability affects both Cisco IOS XR 32-bit Software and Cisco IOS XR 64-bit Software.