# CVE-2022-22240: Denial of service in Junos OS

> A locally authenticated attacker can cause a denial of service via memory leak in the routing daemon when executing specific CLI commands in RIB sharding scenarios.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 18 Oct 2022
- **Updated:** 9 May 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-37r4-cw3g-gh25

## What is CVE-2022-22240?

CVE-2022-22240 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

An Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling and a Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime vulnerability in the routing protocol daemon (rpd) of Juniper Networks Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved allows a locally authenticated low privileged attacker to cause a Denial of Sevice (DoS). In a high-scaled BGP routing environment with rib-sharding enabled, two issues may occur when executing a specific CLI command. One is a memory leak issue with rpd where the leak rate is not constant, and the other is a temporary spike in rpd memory usage during command execution. This issue affects: Juniper Networks Junos OS 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R3-S9; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R3-S5; 20.3 versions prior to 20.3R3-S2; 20.4 versions prior to 20.4R3-S1; 21.1 versions prior to 21.1R3; 21.2 versions prior to 21.2R1-S2, 21.2R2-S1, 21.2R3; 21.3 versions prior to 21.3R2. Juniper Networks Junos OS Evolved All versions prior to 20.4R3-S1-EVO; 21.1-EVO version 21.1R1-EVO and later versions; 21.2-EVO versions prior to 21.2R1-S2-EVO, 21.2R3-EVO; 21.3-EVO versions prior to 21.3R2-EVO. This issue does not affect Juniper Networks Junos OS versions prior to 19.2R1.

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling), CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-22240?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Juniper Junos, Juniper Junos Os Evolved.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-22240?

No fix has been published for CVE-2022-22240 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2022-22240 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-22240 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-2022-22240 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-22240 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-2022-22240 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-2022-22240/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-22240/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-22240
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-22240
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-22240

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-22240/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.