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No exploitation reported

CVE-2020-3165

No exploitation reported by the sources we read.

  • Published2020-02-26
  • WeaknessCWE-798

Am I affected?

With a domain, we read the version its public headers and pages expose. A distribution build can carry the fix under an older number.

Description

A vulnerability in the implementation of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Message Digest 5 (MD5) authentication in Cisco NX-OS Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass MD5 authentication and establish a BGP connection with the device. The vulnerability occurs because the BGP MD5 authentication is bypassed if the peer does not have MD5 authentication configured, the NX-OS device does have BGP MD5 authentication configured, and the NX-OS BGP virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) name is configured to be greater than 19 characters. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by attempting to establish a BGP session with the NX-OS peer. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to establish a BGP session with the NX-OS device without MD5 authentication. The Cisco implementation of the BGP protocol accepts incoming BGP traffic only from explicitly configured peers. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must send the malicious packets over a TCP connection that appears to come from a trusted BGP peer. To do so, the attacker must obtain information about the BGP peers in the affected system’s trusted network.

Timeline

dates in UTC
  1. 2020-02-2617:15CVE publishedNVD

Observed activity

isMalicious corpus · updated 2026-10-23 18:48 UTC
Indicators tagged with this CVE, per day0 indicators over 7 days
Block these indicators
  • Firewall list (EDL, text): https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2020-3165?format=txt
  • CSV export: https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2020-3165?format=csv
  • TAXII collection of exploited CVEs
  • The EDL and CSV take an API key on the Pro plan.

Versions per branch

NVD
Cisco nx-osversion to verify
BranchAffectedFixed in
9.2= 9.2\(1\)no fix published
9.2= 9.2\(2\)no fix published
9.2= 9.2\(3\)no fix published
9.3= 9.3\(1\)no fix published

as publishedRanges as NVD and OSV publish them; a distribution’s build can be fixed under an older number.

Fix

Advisories and patches

Detection

Nuclei template
none so far
ProjectDiscovery
Exploit-DB
no entry
Exploit-DB
Proof-of-concept repositories
none listed
PoC-in-GitHub

Sources

  • CISA-ADPSSVC decisionnone2024-11-15
  • OpenCVESSVC decisionnone—
  • NVDCVSS 3.18.2read 2026-10-23
  • CNACVSS 3.08.2read 2026-10-23
  • NVDCVSS 2.04.3read 2026-10-23
  • CNAweakness (CWE)CWE-798read 2026-10-23
  • NVDweakness (CWE)CWE-798read 2026-10-23
  • FIRST EPSSEPSS score1.6 %2026-10-22

Technical details

CVSS v3 Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N
Published
2020-02-26
Last Modified
2026-06-17
NVD status
Modified

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2020-3165?

A vulnerability in the implementation of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Message Digest 5 (MD5) authentication in Cisco NX-OS Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass MD5 authentication and establish a BGP connection with the device. The vulnerability occurs because the BGP MD5 authentication is bypassed if the peer does not have MD5 authentication configured, the NX-OS device does have BGP MD5 authentication configured, and the NX-OS BGP virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) name is configured to be greater than 19 characters. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by attempting to establish a BGP session with the NX-OS peer. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to establish a BGP session with the NX-OS device without MD5 authentication. The Cisco implementation of the BGP protocol accepts incoming BGP traffic only from explicitly configured peers. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must send the malicious packets over a TCP connection that appears to come from a trusted BGP peer. To do so, the attacker must obtain information about the BGP peers in the affected system’s trusted network.

Is CVE-2020-3165 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2020-3165 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 1.6% on 2026-10-22, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2020-3165?

CVE-2020-3165 has a CVSS v3 base score of 8.2 (HIGH severity), with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N.

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