CVE-2023-28974: Junos OS: MX Series: In a BBE scenario upon receipt of specific malformed packets from subscribers the process bbe-smgd will crash

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2023-04-17 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-754

Description

An Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions vulnerability in the bbe-smgd of Juniper Networks Junos OS allows an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause a Denial of Service (DoS). In a Broadband Edge / Subscriber Management scenario on MX Series when a specifically malformed ICMP packet addressed to the device is received from a subscriber the bbe-smgd will crash, affecting the subscriber sessions that are connecting, updating, or terminating. Continued receipt of such packets will lead to a sustained DoS condition. When this issue happens the below log can be seen if the traceoptions for the processes smg-service are enabled: BBE_TRACE(TRACE_LEVEL_INFO, "%s: Dropped unsupported ICMP PKT ... This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS on MX Series: All versions prior to 19.4R3-S11; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R3-S7; 20.3 versions prior to 20.3R3-S6; 20.4 versions prior to 20.4R3-S6; 21.1 versions prior to 21.1R3-S4; 21.2 versions prior to 21.2R3-S4; 21.3 versions prior to 21.3R3-S3; 21.4 versions prior to 21.4R3-S2; 22.1 versions prior to 22.1R2-S2, 22.1R3; 22.2 versions prior to 22.2R2; 22.3 versions prior to 22.3R1-S2, 22.3R2.

Affected products

Juniper Junos OS: before 19.4; 19.4, 19.4-r1, 19.4-r1-s1, 19.4-r1-s2, 19.4-r1-s3, 19.4-r1-s4 (+97) — fixed in 19.4

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Juniper Junos OS 19.4. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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