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JunosOperating system · Juniper

CVE-2022-22161

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-01-19
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 18.2 or later.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
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
An Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in the kernel of Juniper Networks Junos OS allows an unauthenticated network based attacker to cause 100% CPU load and the device to become unresponsive by sending a flood of traffic to the out-of-band management ethernet port. Continued receipted of a flood will create a sustained Denial of Service (DoS) condition. Once the flood subsides the system will recover by itself. An indication that the system is affected by this issue would be that an irq handled by the fman process is shown to be using a high percentage of CPU cycles like in the following example output: user@host> show system processes extensive ... PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME WCPU COMMAND 31 root -84 -187 0K 16K WAIT 22.2H 56939.26% irq96: fman0 This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS: All versions prior to 18.3R3-S6; 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R2-S9, 18.4R3-S9; 19.1 versions prior to 19.1R2-S3, 19.1R3-S7; 19.2 versions prior to 19.2R1-S7, 19.2R3-S3; 19.3 versions prior to 19.3R2-S7, 19.3R3-S4; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R2-S5, 19.4R3-S5; 20.1 versions prior to 20.1R3-S1; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R3-S2; 20.3 versions prior to 20.3R3-S1; 20.4 versions prior to 20.4R2-S2, 20.4R3; 21.1 versions prior to 21.1R2; 21.2 versions prior to 21.2R1-S1, 21.2R2.

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

Uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in the Juniper Junos OS kernel allows unauthenticated attackers to flood the out-of-band management ethernet port, causing the fman process to handle excessive IRQs (irq96) leading to 100% CPU usage and device unresponsiveness. The DoS persists while the flood continues but the system self-recovers once traffic subsides.

MitigationApply Junos OS patches per the version-specific remediation timeline (19.4R2-S5, 19.4R3-S5, 20.1R3-S1, 20.2R3-S2, 20.3R3-S1, 20.4R2-S2, 20.4R3, 21.1R2, 21.2R1-S1, 21.2R2 and later). Consider rate-limiting or ACL filtering on the management interface as a compensating control.

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
JunosOperating system
Affected:<= 18.2= 18.3= 18.4= 19.1= 19.2= 19.3= 19.4= 20.1= 20.2= 20.3= 20.4= 21.1

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
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

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. Check Junos OS version
    Run 'show version' or 'show version detail' from CLI to obtain the installed Junos version
    Affected if The version matches any of these: <=18.2, 18.3, 18.4, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3, 19.4, 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, 20.4, or 21.1
  2. Verify management interface is accessible
    Run 'show interfaces me0' or 'show interfaces fme0' to confirm the out-of-band management interface is configured and up
    Affected if The management ethernet interface is enabled and reachable from untrusted networks
  3. Confirm fman process state
    Run 'show system processes fman' or monitor 'irq96' handling via 'show system saturation' if available during incident response
    Affected if The fman process shows excessive CPU consumption or irq96 is being handled continuously

A system is affected if it runs any Junos version listed as vulnerable AND has the out-of-band management interface exposed to untrusted traffic, which can trigger the fman process DoS condition.

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 18.2
Interim mitigation

Apply Junos OS patches per the version-specific remediation timeline (19.4R2-S5, 19.4R3-S5, 20.1R3-S1, 20.2R3-S2, 20.3R3-S1, 20.4R2-S2, 20.4R3, 21.1R2, 21.2R1-S1, 21.2R2 and later). Consider rate-limiting or ACL filtering on the management interface as a compensating control.

Recommended fix High confidence

Upgrade to the fixed version for your branch: 18.3R3-S6 or later, 18.4R2-S9/18.4R3-S9 or later, 19.1R2-S3/19.1R3-S7 or later, 19.2R1-S7/19.2R3-S3 or later, 19.3R2-S7/19.3R3-S4 or later, 19.4R2-S5/19.4R3-S5 or later, 20.1R3-S1 or later, 20.2R3-S2 or later, 20.3R3-S1 or later, 20.4R2-S2/20.4R3 or late

  1. 1. Identify the current Junos OS version by running 'show version' on the device
  2. 2. Based on the current version, determine the minimum fixed release for your branch from the fixed version list
  3. 3. Download the appropriate fixed Junos OS release from the Juniper Networks support portal (kb.juniper.net)
  4. 4. Transfer the Junos OS upgrade package to the device using 'file copy' or USB storage
  5. 5. Install the upgrade using 'request system software add <package_name> reboot'
  6. 6. After reboot, verify the new version is installed using 'show version'
  7. 7. Verify the fix is applied by monitoring that the fman process irq usage returns to normal levels using 'show system processes extensive'
  8. 8. As a temporary mitigation until upgrade: implement access control lists (ACLs) on the out-of-band management interface to restrict traffic to trusted management IP addresses only
Caveat Standard Junos OS upgrade considerations apply - review Juniper upgrade guidelines for your hardware platform, test in lab environment before production deployment, and ensure configuration compatibility with target release

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Junos Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,800
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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-2022-22161 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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