# CVE-2023-28968: Junos OS: SRX Series: Policies that rely on JDPI-Decoder actions may fail open

> An attacker can bypass security policies on Juniper SRX devices by exploiting a flaw in the JDPI-Decoder, causing traffic to pass without inspection.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 17 Apr 2023
- **Updated:** 6 Feb 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-xghw-5mm2-r3q7

## What is CVE-2023-28968?

CVE-2023-28968 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Juniper Junos, published on 17 Apr 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An Improperly Controlled Sequential Memory Allocation vulnerability in the Juniper Networks Deep Packet Inspection-Decoder (JDPI-Decoder) Application Signature component of Junos OS's AppID service on SRX Series devices will stop the JDPI-Decoder from identifying dynamic application traffic, allowing an unauthenticated network-based attacker to send traffic to the target device using the JDPI-Decoder, designed to inspect dynamic application traffic and take action upon this traffic, to instead begin to not take action and to pass the traffic through. An example session can be seen by running the following command and evaluating the output. user@device# run show security flow session source-prefix <address/mask> extensive Session ID: <session ID>, Status: Normal, State: Active Policy name: <name of policy> Dynamic application: junos:UNKNOWN, <<<<< LOOK HERE Please note, the JDPI-Decoder and the AppID SigPack are both affected and both must be upgraded along with the operating system to address the matter. By default, none of this is auto-enabled for automatic updates. This issue affects: Juniper Networks any version of the JDPI-Decoder Engine prior to version 5.7.0-47 with the JDPI-Decoder enabled using any version of the AppID SigPack prior to version 1.550.2-31 (SigPack 3533) on Junos OS on SRX Series: All versions prior to 19.1R3-S10; 19.2 versions prior to 19.2R3-S7; 19.3 versions prior to 19.3R3-S8; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R3-S11; 20.1 version 20.1R1 and later versions prior to 20.2R3-S7; 20.3 version 20.3R1 and later versions prior to 20.4R3-S6; 21.1 versions prior to 21.1R3-S5; 21.2 versions prior to 21.2R3-S4; 21.3 versions prior to 21.3R3-S3; 21.4 versions prior to 21.4R3-S3; 22.1 versions prior to 22.1R3-S1; 22.2 versions prior to 22.2R2-S1, 22.2R3; 22.3 versions prior to 22.3R1-S2, 22.3R2;

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling), CWE-1325 (Improperly Controlled Sequential Memory Allocation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-28968?

It affects 3 products.


Products: Juniper Appid Service Sigpack, Juniper Jdpi-Decoder Engine, Juniper Junos.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-28968?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-28968 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2023-28968 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-28968 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-28968 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-28968 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Juniper Junos, published on 17 Apr 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-2023-28968 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-2023-28968/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-28968/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-28968
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-28968
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-28968

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-28968/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.