Cascading reboots via PFE memory leak
Published Jan 12, 2023 · Updated Apr 7, 2025
Resource exhaustion in Junos OS Evolved on PTX10003 devices allows attackers to force cascading reboots via adjacent-network traffic. A TOCTOU race in PFE memory management causes specific genuine packets to leak NH/JTM memory until internal anti-flood controls reach their response limit. The attack requires environmental knowledge, established preconditions, and sustained offending traffic; affected routers then reboot and self-recover, potentially propagating the outage to vulnerable neighbors.
Summary
What happened
Resource exhaustion in Junos OS Evolved on PTX10003 devices allows attackers to force cascading reboots via adjacent-network traffic. A TOCTOU race in PFE memory management causes specific genuine packets to leak NH/JTM memory until internal anti-flood controls reach their response limit. The attack requires environmental knowledge, established preconditions, and sustained offending traffic; affected routers then reboot and self-recover, potentially propagating the outage to vulnerable neighbors.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-22397
- Published
- Jan 12, 2023
- Updated
- Apr 7, 2025
- Vendor
- Juniper Networks
- Product
- Junos OS Evolved
- Classifications
- CWE-770, CWE-367, T1498
- Attack vector
- adjacent
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jan 12, 2023CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Apr 7, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=21.3 <21.3R3-S1-EVO
- Affected versionversion=21.4 <21.4R2-S2-EVO, 21.4R3-EVO
- Affected versionversion=22.1 <22.1R1-S2-EVO, 22.1R2-EVO
- Affected versionversion=22.2 <22.2R2-EVO
- Affected versionversion=unspecified <20.4R3-S4-EVO
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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