An Improper Authorization vulnerability in the 'sysmanctl' shell command of Juniper Networks Junos OS Evolved allows a local, authenticated attacker to execute administrative commands that could impact the integrity of the system or system availability. Administrative functions such as daemon restarting, routing engine (RE) switchover, and node shutdown can all be performed through exploitation of the 'sysmanctl' command.

Access to the 'sysmanctl' command is only available from the Junos shell. Neither direct nor indirect access to 'sysmanctl' is available from the Junos CLI.

This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS Evolved:

• All versions prior to 20.4R3-S5-EVO;
• 21.2 versions prior to 21.2R3-EVO;
• 21.3 versions prior to 21.3R2-EVO;
• 21.4 versions prior to 21.4R1-S2-EVO, 21.4R2-EVO.

Juniper SIRT is not aware of any malicious exploitation of this vulnerability.

This issue was found during internal product security testing or research.

This issue has been assigned CVE-2023-28973.
 

The following software releases have been updated to resolve this specific issue: Junos OS Evolved 20.4R3-S5-EVO, 21.2R3-EVO, 21.3R2-EVO, 21.4R1-S2-EVO, 21.4R2-EVO, 22.1R1-EVO, and all subsequent releases.

This issue is being tracked as 1621545

Note: Juniper SIRT's policy is not to evaluate releases which are beyond End of Engineering (EOE) or End of Life (EOL).
 

• 2023-04-12: Initial Publication.

• KB16613: Overview of the Juniper Networks SIRT Quarterly Security Bulletin Publication Process [juniper.net]
• KB16765: In which releases are vulnerabilities fixed? [juniper.net]
• KB16446: Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and Juniper's Security Advisories [juniper.net]
• Report a Security Vulnerability - How to Contact the Juniper Networks Security Incident Response Team
• CVE-2023-28973 at cve.mitre.org