CVE-2022-22173 Junos OS: CRL failing to download causes a memory leak and ultimately a DoS
An unauthenticated attacker can cause a denial of service by triggering a memory leak in the PKI daemon when CRL downloads fail, requiring PKI and CRL features to be enabled.
- 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-2022-22173?
CVE-2022-22173 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Juniper Junos, published on 19 Jan 2022. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime vulnerability in the Public Key Infrastructure daemon (pkid) of Juniper Networks Junos OS allows an unauthenticated networked attacker to cause Denial of Service (DoS). In a scenario where Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is used in combination with Certificate Revocation List (CRL), if the CRL fails to download the memory allocated to store the CRL is not released. Repeated occurrences will eventually consume all available memory and lead to an inoperable state of the affected system causing a DoS. This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS: All versions prior to 18.3R3-S6; 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R2-S9, 18.4R3-S10; 19.1 versions prior to 19.1R2-S3, 19.1R3-S7; 19.2 versions prior to 19.2R1-S8, 19.2R3-S4; 19.3 versions prior to 19.3R3-S4; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R2-S5, 19.4R3-S5; 20.1 versions prior to 20.1R3-S1; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R3-S2; 20.3 versions prior to 20.3R3-S1; 20.4 versions prior to 20.4R3; 21.1 versions prior to 21.1R2, 21.1R3; 21.2 versions prior to 21.2R1-S1, 21.2R2. This issue can be observed by monitoring the memory utilization of the pkid process via: root@jtac-srx1500-r2003> show system processes extensive | match pki 20931 root 20 0 733M 14352K select 0:00 0.00% pkid which increases over time: root@jtac-srx1500-r2003> show system processes extensive | match pki 22587 root 20 0 901M 181M select 0:03 0.00% pkid
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-22173?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Juniper Junos.
How do I fix CVE-2022-22173?
No fix has been published for CVE-2022-22173 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-2022-22173 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-22173 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-347m-w2v2-fmv3.