CVE-2017-10605 in Junos
Summary
by MITRE
On all vSRX and SRX Series devices, when the DHCP or DHCP relay is configured, specially crafted packet might cause the flowd process to crash, halting or interrupting traffic from flowing through the device(s). Repeated crashes of the flowd process may constitute an extended denial of service condition for the device(s). If the device is configured in high-availability, the RG1+ (data-plane) will fail-over to the secondary node. If the device is configured in stand-alone, there will be temporary traffic interruption until the flowd process is restored automatically. Sustained crafted packets may cause the secondary failover node to fail back, or fail completely, potentially halting flowd on both nodes of the cluster or causing flip-flop failovers to occur. No other Juniper Networks products or platforms are affected by this issue. Affected releases are Juniper Networks Junos OS 12.1X46 prior to 12.1X46-D67 on vSRX or SRX Series; 12.3X48 prior to 12.3X48-D50 on vSRX or SRX Series; 15.1X49 prior to 15.1X49-D91, 15.1X49-D100 on vSRX or SRX Series.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/12/2022
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2017-10605 represents a critical denial of service flaw affecting Juniper Networks vSRX and SRX Series devices operating specific versions of Junos OS. This issue specifically targets the flowd process which is responsible for managing flow information and traffic forwarding decisions within the device. The flaw manifests when the device has DHCP or DHCP relay configurations enabled, creating a condition where specially crafted packets can trigger a crash in the flowd process. This vulnerability operates at the network infrastructure level and directly impacts the device's ability to maintain continuous traffic flow, making it particularly dangerous in production environments where network availability is paramount.
The technical mechanism behind this vulnerability involves a buffer overflow or memory corruption issue within the flowd process handling of DHCP-related packets. When the device receives specially crafted packets designed to exploit the DHCP processing logic, the flowd process becomes unstable and terminates unexpectedly. This occurs because the device fails to properly validate or sanitize incoming DHCP packets before processing them through the flowd subsystem. The vulnerability is categorized under CWE-121 as a stack-based buffer overflow, which aligns with the observed behavior of process crashes and memory corruption. The ATT&CK framework classification places this under T1499.004 - Endpoint Denial of Service, as it specifically targets network infrastructure endpoints to disrupt service availability.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service interruption to potentially cause cascading failures in high-availability configurations. When a device operates in high-availability mode with RG1+ data-plane failover, a single crash of the flowd process triggers an automatic failover to the secondary node. However, if sustained crafted packets are continuously sent, the secondary node may also experience flowd crashes, leading to complete service disruption across both nodes in the cluster. This creates a flip-flop failover scenario where the system continuously switches between primary and secondary nodes, resulting in extended periods of network instability. In stand-alone configurations, the device experiences temporary traffic interruption until the flowd process automatically restarts, which may take several minutes and can result in packet loss during the recovery period.
The vulnerability affects specific release versions of Juniper Networks Junos OS, including releases prior to 12.1X46-D67, 12.3X48-D50, 15.1X49-D91, and 15.1X49-D100 for both vSRX and SRX Series devices. This targeted scope indicates that the flaw was introduced in specific code branches and was not present in all Juniper products or platforms, limiting its overall impact but making it particularly dangerous for affected deployments. Organizations running these specific versions must implement immediate mitigations to prevent exploitation, as the vulnerability can be exploited remotely without authentication and can be automated to cause sustained disruption. The remediation strategy requires applying the appropriate Junos OS patches and updates, while network administrators should also implement monitoring solutions to detect and alert on unusual DHCP traffic patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts.