CVE-2025-52986
Juniper Junos ≤ 21.2
Raw vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:L/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:Y/R:A/V:X/RE:M/U:XSummary
CVE-2025-52986 is a medium-severity Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime (CWE-401) vulnerability in Juniper Junos. Its CVSS base score is 6.8 (Medium).
Operationally, ranked at the 2th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-6 (Least Privilege) and SC-6 (Resource Availability) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-21144
Vulnerability Data
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 local, low privileged user to cause an impact to the availability of the device.…
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When RIB sharding is enabled and a user executes one of several routing related 'show' commands, a certain amount of memory is leaked. When all available memory has been consumed rpd will crash and restart. The leak can be monitored with the CLI command: show task memory detail | match task_shard_mgmt_cookie where the allocated memory in bytes can be seen to continuously increase with each exploitation. This issue affects: Junos OS: * all versions before 21.2R3-S9, * 21.4 versions before 21.4R3-S11, * 22.2 versions before 22.2R3-S7, * 22.4 versions before 22.4R3-S7, * 23.2 versions before 23.2R2-S4, * 23.4 versions before 23.4R2-S4, * 24.2 versions before 24.2R2, * 24.4 versions before 24.4R1-S2, 24.4R2; Junos OS Evolved: * all versions before 22.2R3-S7-EVO * 22.4-EVO versions before 22.4R3-S7-EVO, * 23.2-EVO versions before 23.2R2-S4-EVO, * 23.4-EVO versions before 23.4R2-S4-EVO, * 24.2-EVO versions before 24.2R2-EVO, * 24.4-EVO versions before 24.4R2-EVO.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Restricts low-privileged local users from executing the routing-related show commands that trigger the memory leak when RIB sharding is enabled.
Directly protects availability of the rpd process by mitigating exhaustion of system memory caused by the unreleased allocations.
Requires prompt application of vendor patches that close the CWE-401 leak in all listed Junos OS/Evolved releases.
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.
Secure SDLC practices directly enforce proper memory allocation/deallocation via coding standards, reviews, and tooling.
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.
Security testing in development can detect unreleased memory, providing partial coverage of the weakness.
Secure development life cycle mandates memory-management practices that reduce missing-release defects.
Application security requirements can specify explicit memory-release rules, partially mitigating the weakness.
Secure system architecture and engineering principles include resource-management guidelines that address memory leaks.
Secure coding standards directly require proper allocation/deallocation, covering most of this weakness.
Capacity management may detect memory exhaustion symptoms but does not prevent the coding flaw.