CVE-2026-33780
Juniper Junos ≤ 22.4
Raw vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:A/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/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:X/V:X/RE:M/U:XSummary
CVE-2026-33780 is a high-severity Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime (CWE-401) vulnerability in Juniper Junos. Its CVSS base score is 7.1 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 7th 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 SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) and SI-4 (System Monitoring) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-21090
Vulnerability Data
A Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime vulnerability in the Layer 2 Address Learning Daemon (l2ald) of Juniper Networks Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved allows an adjacent, unauthenticated attacker to cause a memory leak ultimately leading to a…
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Denial of Service (DoS). In an EVPN-MPLS scenario, routes learned from remote multi-homed Provider Edge (PE) devices are programmed as ESI routes. Due to a logic issue in the l2ald memory management, memory allocated for these routes is not released when there is churn for these routes. As a result, memory leaks in the l2ald process which will ultimately lead to a crash and restart of l2ald. Use the following command to monitor the memory consumption by l2ald: user@device> show system process extensive | match "PID|l2ald" This issue affects: Junos OS: * all versions before 22.4R3-S5, * 23.2 versions before 23.2R2-S3, * 23.4 versions before 23.4R2-S4, * 24.2 versions before 24.2R2; Junos OS Evolved: * all versions before 22.4R3-S5-EVO, * 23.2 versions before 23.2R2-S3-EVO, * 23.4 versions before 23.4R2-S4-EVO, * 24.2 versions before 24.2R2-EVO.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Memory leak in l2ald daemon directly enables remote exploitation to exhaust resources and crash the service (application/system exploitation for DoS).
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly requires applying vendor patches that correct the l2ald memory-release logic for ESI routes in EVPN-MPLS.
Enables continuous monitoring of l2ald memory consumption (via show system process) to identify the leak before it causes a crash.
Boundary-protection rules can restrict EVPN-MPLS peering to only trusted adjacent devices, reducing the attack surface for the unauthenticated memory-leak trigger.
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.