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Catalyst 9800 L FirmwareOperating system · Cisco

CVE-2022-20945

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.1 Developing Published 2022-09-30
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 17.6.4 or later.
See remediation →
70/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
A vulnerability in the 802.11 association frame validation of Cisco Catalyst 9100 Series Access Points (APs) could allow an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to insufficient input validation of certain parameters within association request frames received by the AP. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted 802.11 association request to a nearby device. An exploit could allow the attacker to unexpectedly reload the device, resulting in a DoS condition.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · low confidence
Developing — this CVE was published recently and its authoritative NVD entry is still being established, so we're holding a technical summary until the source data settles rather than publish something unreliable. Re-checking after 2026-08-01.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Catalyst 9800 L FirmwareOperating system
Affected:>= 17.6, < 17.6.4
Catalyst 9800 40 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:>= 17.6, < 17.6.4
Catalyst 9800 80 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:>= 17.6, < 17.6.4
Catalyst 9800 Cl FirmwareOperating system
Affected:>= 17.6, < 17.6.4

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Adjacent
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 17.6.4 or later
Fixed in 17.6.4
Recommended fix High confidence

Cisco IOS XE 17.6.4 or later for Catalyst 9800 series (L, 40, 80, Cl)

  1. Verify current firmware version on the affected Catalyst 9800 series AP or controller using 'show version' command
  2. Download Cisco IOS XE 17.6.4 or later from the Cisco software download center
  3. Follow Cisco's standard firmware upgrade procedure for Catalyst 9800 series: upload the firmware file to the device's flash storage, then execute 'software install file <file> new' command
  4. After upgrade, verify the new version is running with 'show version'
  5. Confirm the device is handling 802.11 association frames properly and monitoring for stability
Caveat Review Cisco release notes for 17.6.4 for any feature changes or migration considerations before upgrading

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $2,850. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2022-20945 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data