Netscreen ScreenosOperating system · Juniper

CVE-2002-2150

MEDIUM · 5.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2002-12-31
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
59/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Firewalls from multiple vendors empty state tables more slowly than they are filled, which allows remote attackers to flood state tables with packet flooding attacks such as (1) TCP SYN flood, (2) UDP flood, or (3) Crikey CRC Flood, which causes the firewall to refuse any new connections.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

Multiple firewall products maintain connection state tables that track active sessions. These firewalls expire/remove state table entries more slowly than attackers can inject new bogus connections, allowing attackers to flood the state table with malicious traffic (TCP SYN, UDP, or CRC floods). Once the table is full, the firewall rejects all new connections including legitimate traffic.

MitigationImplement aggressive state table timeout values, enable SYN cookies or SYN proxies, apply rate-limiting on connection initiation, and ensure anti-spoofing filters are active to reduce the rate at which bogus connections can be created.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Netscreen ScreenosOperating system
Affected:= 2.7.1= 2.7.1r1= 2.7.1r2= 2.7.1r3= 2.10_r3= 2.10_r4= 3.0.1r1= 3.0.1r2= 3.0.3_r1.1

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Partial

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify the Netscreen Screenos version
    Use the command 'get system' or 'show version' in the Screenos CLI to retrieve the firmware version
    Affected if The displayed version matches any of these: 2.7.1, 2.7.1r1, 2.7.1r2, 2.7.1r3, 2.10_r3, 2.10_r4, 3.0.1r1, 3.0.1r2, or 3.0.3_r1.1
  2. Confirm stateful inspection is active
    Use 'get session' or 'get session info' to verify the firewall is maintaining connection state tables
    Affected if Stateful inspection is enabled and the session table is actively tracking connections
  3. Check state table timeout configuration
    Use 'get session timeout' or similar command to review the aging/timeout values for TCP, UDP, and other session entries
    Affected if Timeout values are set to default high values (e.g., TCP established timeout > 60 minutes) rather than aggressive low values

You are affected if you are running any of the listed Screenos versions (2.7.1 through 3.0.3_r1.1) with stateful inspection enabled, as the slow state table expiration allows exhaustion attacks.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Implement aggressive state table timeout values, enable SYN cookies or SYN proxies, apply rate-limiting on connection initiation, and ensure anti-spoofing filters are active to reduce the rate at which bogus connections can be created.

Fix this in Netscreen Screenos Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
20.0 hours of engineering $3,500
Get help mitigating

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $5,600.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2002-2150 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2002-2150 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data