Security Resilience

CVE-2023-36838

Memory Safety in Juniper Junos ≤ 20.2

Memory Safety
Published
14 July 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0018 7th percentile
Risk Priority 41 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-36838 is a medium-severity Out-of-bounds Read (CWE-125) vulnerability in Juniper Junos. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data Obfuscation (T1001); ranked at the 7th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

An Out-of-bounds Read vulnerability in the flow processing daemon (flowd) of Juniper Networks Junos OS on SRX Series allows a local, authenticated attacker with low privileges, to cause a Denial of Service (DoS). If a low privileged user executes a…

more

specific CLI command, flowd which is responsible for traffic forwarding in SRX crashes and generates a core dump. This will cause temporary traffic interruption until the flowd process is restarted automatically. Continued execution of this command will lead to a sustained DoS. This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS on SRX Series: All versions prior to 20.2R3-S7; 20.3 version 20.3R1 and later versions; 20.4 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-S4; 21.4 versions prior to 21.4R3-S3; 22.1 versions prior to 22.1R3-S1; 22.2 versions prior to 22.2R3; 22.3 versions prior to 22.3R2; 22.4 versions prior to 22.4R1-S1, 22.4R2.

CWE(s)
CWE-125

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1001 Data Obfuscation Command And Control
Adversaries may obfuscate command and control traffic to make it more difficult to detect.
attack.mitre.org →
T1001.002 Steganography Command And Control
Adversaries may use steganographic techniques to hide command and control traffic to make detection efforts more difficult.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.002 Security Account Manager Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to extract credential material from the Security Account Manager (SAM) database either through in-memory techniques or through the Windows Registry where the SAM database is stored.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.003 NTDS Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access or create a copy of the Active Directory domain database in order to steal credential information, as well as obtain other information about domain members such as devices, users, and access rights.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.004 LSA Secrets Credential Access
Adversaries with SYSTEM access to a host may attempt to access Local Security Authority (LSA) secrets, which can contain a variety of different credential materials, such as credentials for service accounts.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.006 DCSync Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access credentials and other sensitive information by abusing a Windows Domain Controller's application programming interface (API)(Citation: Microsoft DRSR Dec 2017) (Citation: Microsoft GetNCCChanges) (Citati…
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-21600Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2024-39516Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2025-21598Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2024-30401Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2024-21618Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2025-48822Shared CWE-125
CVE-2023-42063Shared CWE-125
CVE-2025-21905Shared CWE-125
CVE-2026-43048Shared CWE-125
CVE-2024-27382Shared CWE-125

Affected Assets

juniper
junos
20.2, 20.3, 20.4, 21.1, 21.2 · ≤ 20.2

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

ID.RA-01 partial match
blocks

Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover instances of out-of-bounds reads after code is deployed.

PR.PS-02 partial match
blocks

Routine patching replaces vulnerable code containing out-of-bounds read flaws.

PR.PS-06 partial match
blocks

Secure-development practices such as bounds checking and memory-safe languages directly prevent out-of-bounds reads.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

A.5.14 Information transfer partial match
removes
A.5.15 Access control partial match
removes
A.5.16 Identity management partial match
removes
A.5.17 Authentication information partial match
removes
A.5.18 Access rights partial match
removes
A.8.10 Information deletion partial match
removes

References