# CVE-2023-22410: Denial of service in Junos OS

> An unauthenticated adjacent attacker can cause a memory leak and subsequent denial of service on Juniper MX Series devices if the Suspicious Control Flow Detection feature is enabled.

- **Severity:** High 7.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/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:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 12 Jan 2023
- **Updated:** 7 Apr 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-277j-7gg4-fp2x

## What is CVE-2023-22410?

CVE-2023-22410 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Juniper Junos, published on 12 Jan 2023. 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 Juniper Networks Junos OS on MX Series platforms with MPC10/MPC11 line cards, allows an unauthenticated adjacent attacker to cause a Denial of Service (DoS). Devices are only vulnerable when the Suspicious Control Flow Detection (scfd) feature is enabled. Upon enabling this specific feature, an attacker sending specific traffic is causing memory to be allocated dynamically and it is not freed. Memory is not freed even after deactivating this feature. Sustained processing of such traffic will eventually lead to an out of memory condition that prevents all services from continuing to function, and requires a manual restart to recover. The FPC memory usage can be monitored using the CLI command "show chassis fpc". On running the above command, the memory of AftDdosScfdFlow can be observed to detect the memory leak. This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS on MX Series: All versions prior to 20.2R3-S5; 20.3 version 20.3R1 and later versions.

Weakness: CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-22410?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Juniper Junos.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-22410?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-22410 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2023-22410 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-22410 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-2023-22410 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-22410 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Juniper Junos, published on 12 Jan 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-22410 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-2023-22410/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-22410/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-22410
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-22410
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-22410

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-22410/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.