CVE-2020-1653 Junos OS: Kernel crash (vmcore) or FPC crash due to mbuf leak
Remote attackers can cause a denial of service on Juniper Junos OS devices by sending TCP packets that trigger an mbuf leak, leading to system crashes.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2020-1653?
CVE-2020-1653 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Juniper Junos, published on 17 Jul 2020. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
On Juniper Networks Junos OS devices, a stream of TCP packets sent to the Routing Engine (RE) may cause mbuf leak which can lead to Flexible PIC Concentrator (FPC) crash or the system to crash and restart (vmcore). This issue can be trigged by IPv4 or IPv6 and it is caused only by TCP packets. This issue is not related to any specific configuration and it affects Junos OS releases starting from 17.4R1. However, this issue does not affect Junos OS releases prior to 18.2R1 when Nonstop active routing (NSR) is configured [edit routing-options nonstop-routing]. The number of mbufs is platform dependent. The following command provides the number of mbufs counter that are currently in use and maximum number of mbufs that can be allocated on a platform: user@host> show system buffers 2437/3143/5580 mbufs in use (current/cache/total) Once the device runs out of mbufs, the FPC crashes or the vmcore occurs and the device might become inaccessible requiring a manual restart. This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS 17.4 versions prior to 17.4R2-S11, 17.4R3-S2; 18.1 versions prior to 18.1R3-S10; 18.2 versions prior to 18.2R2-S7, 18.2R3-S5; 18.2X75 versions prior to 18.2X75-D41, 18.2X75-D420.12, 18.2X75-D51, 18.2X75-D60, 18.2X75-D34; 18.3 versions prior to 18.3R2-S4, 18.3R3-S2; 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R1-S7, 18.4R2-S4, 18.4R3-S1; 19.1 versions prior to 19.1R1-S5, 19.1R2-S1, 19.1R3; 19.2 versions prior to 19.2R1-S5, 19.2R2; 19.3 versions prior to 19.3R2-S3, 19.3R3; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R1-S2, 19.4R2. Versions of Junos OS prior to 17.4R1 are unaffected by this vulnerability.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-1653?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Juniper Junos.
How do I fix CVE-2020-1653?
No fix has been published for CVE-2020-1653 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2020-1653 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-1653 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Juniper Junos
- CVE-2023-36845 Juniper Junos OS EX Series and SRX Series PHP External Variable Modification
- CVE-2020-1631 Juniper Junos OS Path Traversal
- CVE-2025-21590 Juniper Junos OS Improper Isolation or Compartmentalization
- CVE-2023-36851 Juniper Junos OS SRX Series Missing Authentication for Critical Function
- CVE-2023-36844 Juniper Junos OS EX Series PHP External Variable Modification
Sources
Also known as GHSA-q694-5rvh-m24r.