CVE-2023-36843Junos OS: SRX Series: The PFE will crash on receiving malformed SSL traffic when Sky ATP is enabled
- 7.5HighCVSS base score
- 0.65%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 48% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
An Improper Handling of Inconsistent Special Elements vulnerability in the Junos Services Framework (jsf) module of Juniper Networks Junos OS allows an unauthenticated network based attacker to cause a crash in the Packet Forwarding Engine (pfe) and thereby resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS). Upon receiving malformed SSL traffic, the PFE crashes. A manual restart will be needed to recover the device. This issue only affects devices with Juniper Networks Advanced Threat Prevention (ATP) Cloud enabled with Encrypted Traffic Insights (configured via ‘security-metadata-streaming policy’). This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS: * All versions prior to 20.4R3-S8, 20.4R3-S9; * 21.1 version 21.1R1 and later versions; * 21.2 versions prior to 21.2R3-S6; * 21.3 versions prior to 21.3R3-S5; * 21.4 versions prior to 21.4R3-S5; * 22.1 versions prior to 22.1R3-S4; * 22.2 versions prior to 22.2R3-S2; * 22.3 versions prior to 22.3R2-S2, 22.3R3; * 22.4 versions prior to 22.4R2-S1, 22.4R3;
Timeline
ID reserved
By juniper
- 4 months later
· 4 months later
Published
- 11 months later
· 11 months later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| juniperCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.65% · top 48% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.5.
Affected products
- affected < 20.4R3-S8
- affected 21.1R1 – < 21.1*
- affected 21.2 – < 21.2R3-S6
- affected 21.3 – < 21.3R3-S5
- affected 21.4 – < 21.4R3-S5
- affected 22.1 – < 22.1R3-S4
- affected 22.2 – < 22.2R3-S2
- affected 22.3 – < 22.3R2-S2, 22.3R3
- affected 22.4 – < 22.4R2-S1, 22.4R3
What to do
Solution: The following software releases have been updated to resolve this specific issue: Junos OS 20.4R3-S8, 21.2R3-S6, 21.3R3-S5, 21.4R3-S5, 22.1R3-S4, 22.2R3-S2, 22.3R2-S2, 22.3R3, 22.4R2-S1, 22.4R3, 23.1R2, 23.2R1, and all subsequent releases.
Workaround: Removing the security-metadata-streaming policy from the configuration stops the issue.
Exploitation: Juniper SIRT is not aware of any malicious exploitation of this vulnerability.
References
References1
- https://supportportal.juniper.net/JSA73174 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2023-40763 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2023-36843)Record last updated .