CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-28984 — Juniper Junos security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.3

A Use After Free vulnerability in the Layer 2 Address Learning Manager (l2alm) of Juniper Networks Junos OS on QFX Series allows an adjacent attacker to cause the Packet Forwarding Engine to crash and restart, leading to a Denial of Service (DoS). The PFE may crash when a lot of MAC learning and aging happens, but due to a Race Condition (Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization) that is outside the attackers direct control. This issue affects: Juniper Networks Junos OS versions prior to 19.4R3-S10 on QFX Series; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R3-S7 on QFX Series; 20.3 versions prior to 20.3R3-S6 on QFX Series; 20.4 versions prior to 20.4R3-S5 on QFX Series; 21.1 versions prior to 21.1R3-S4 on QFX Series; 21.2 versions prior to 21.2R3-S3 on QFX Series; 21.3 versions prior to 21.3R3-S3 on QFX Series; 21.4 versions prior to 21.4R3 on QFX Series; 22.1 versions prior to 22.1R3 on QFX Series; 22.2 versions prior to 22.2R2 on QFX Series.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.3 (3.1)
Published
2023-04-17
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
operating-system
Weaknesses
CWE-362, CWE-416

Affected products

  • juniper / junos / 20.2

Showing 1 representative product identities from 86 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Use-after-free, double free, and expired resource use

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Trace ownership, references, callbacks, asynchronous tasks, and teardown paths around the affected object or resource.
  • Identify reachable inputs and timing or state transitions that can release the object while references remain.
  • Confirm affected builds, allocators, feature flags, architectures, and process privileges.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the maintained ownership or lifetime fix and rebuild all artifacts containing the affected native code.
  • Use explicit ownership, safe reference management, cancellation and join semantics, and idempotent teardown.
  • Add deterministic lifetime tests plus isolated sanitizer and concurrency coverage for shutdown and error paths.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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