# CVE-2023-44183: Denial of service in Junos OS

> An adjacent attacker can cause a DMA memory leak and subsequent denial of service on Juniper QFX5000 and EX4600 switches by sending specific VxLAN packets.

- **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:** 12 Oct 2023
- **Updated:** 18 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-x9hv-97wr-x4j8

## What is CVE-2023-44183?

CVE-2023-44183 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Juniper Junos, published on 12 Oct 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An Improper Input Validation vulnerability in the VxLAN packet forwarding engine (PFE) of Juniper Networks Junos OS on QFX5000 Series, EX4600 Series devices allows an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker, sending two or more genuine packets in the same VxLAN topology to possibly cause a DMA memory leak to occur under various specific operational conditions. The scenario described here is the worst-case scenario. There are other scenarios that require operator action to occur.

An indicator of compromise may be seen when multiple devices indicate that FPC0 has gone missing when issuing a show chassis fpc command for about 10 to 20 minutes, and a number of interfaces have also gone missing.

Use the following command to determine if FPC0 has gone missing from the device.

show chassis fpc detail
This issue affects:

Juniper Networks Junos OS on QFX5000 Series, EX4600 Series:

  *  18.4 version 18.4R2 and later versions prior to 20.4R3-S8;
  *  21.1 version 21.1R1 and later versions prior to 21.2R3-S6;
  *  21.3 versions prior to 21.3R3-S5;
  *  21.4 versions prior to 21.4R3-S4;
  *  22.1 versions prior to 22.1R3-S3;
  *  22.2 versions prior to 22.2R3-S1;
  *  22.3 versions prior to 22.3R2-S2, 22.3R3;
  *  22.4 versions prior to 22.4R2.

Weakness: CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime), CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-44183?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Juniper Junos.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-44183?

No fix has been published for CVE-2023-44183 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2023-44183 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-44183 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-2023-44183 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-44183 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Juniper Junos, published on 12 Oct 2023. 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-2023-44183 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-2023-44183/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-44183/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-44183
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-44183
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-44183

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-44183/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.