# CVE-2022-22226: Denial of service in Junos OS

> An unauthenticated adjacent attacker can cause a sustained denial of service by sending specific packets that trigger a memory leak in the Packet Forwarding Engine on VxLAN-enabled devices.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 18 Oct 2022
- **Updated:** 12 May 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-wh34-7vvv-gqx8

## What is CVE-2022-22226?

CVE-2022-22226 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Juniper Junos, published on 18 Oct 2022. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In VxLAN scenarios on EX4300-MP, EX4600, QFX5000 Series devices an Uncontrolled Memory Allocation vulnerability in the Packet Forwarding Engine (PFE) of Juniper Networks Junos OS allows an unauthenticated adjacently located attacker sending specific packets to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) condition by crashing one or more PFE's when they are received and processed by the device. Upon automatic restart of the PFE, continued processing of these packets will cause the memory leak to reappear. Depending on the volume of packets received the attacker may be able to create a sustained Denial of Service (DoS) condition. This issue affects: Juniper Networks Junos OS on EX4300-MP, EX4600, QFX5000 Series: 17.1 version 17.1R1 and later versions prior to 17.3R3-S12; 17.4 versions prior to 17.4R2-S13, 17.4R3-S5; 18.1 versions prior to 18.1R3-S13; 18.2 versions prior to 18.2R3-S8; 18.3 versions prior to 18.3R3-S5; 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R1-S8, 18.4R2-S6, 18.4R3-S6; 19.1 versions prior to 19.1R3-S4; 19.2 versions prior to 19.2R1-S7, 19.2R3-S1; 19.3 versions prior to 19.3R2-S6, 19.3R3-S1; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R1-S4, 19.4R2-S4, 19.4R3-S1; 20.1 versions prior to 20.1R2; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R2-S3, 20.2R3; 20.3 versions prior to 20.3R2. This issue does not affect Junos OS versions prior to 17.1R1.

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling), CWE-789 (Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-22226?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Juniper Junos.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-22226?

No fix has been published for CVE-2022-22226 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2022-22226 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-22226 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Juniper Junos

- [CVE-2023-36845](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-36845/): Juniper Junos OS EX Series and SRX Series PHP External Variable Modification (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2020-1631](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-1631/): Juniper Junos OS Path Traversal (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-21590](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21590/): Juniper Junos OS Improper Isolation or Compartmentalization (medium 6.7, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2023-36851](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-36851/): Juniper Junos OS SRX Series Missing Authentication for Critical Function (medium 5.3, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2023-36844](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-36844/): Juniper Junos OS EX Series PHP External Variable Modification (medium 5.3, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-22226 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-22226 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Juniper Junos, published on 18 Oct 2022. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-22226 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Juniper Junos. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-22226/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-22226/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-22226
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-22226
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-22226

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-22226/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.