An Unchecked Return Value vulnerability in the user interfaces to the Juniper Networks Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved, the CLI, the XML API, the XML Management Protocol, the NETCONF Management Protocol, the gNMI interfaces, and the J-Web User Interfaces causes unintended effects such as demotion or elevation of privileges associated with an operators actions to occur.

Multiple scenarios may occur; for example: privilege escalation over the device or another account, access to files that should not otherwise be accessible, files not being accessible where they should be accessible, code expected to run as non-root may run as root, and so forth.

This issue affects:
Juniper Networks Junos OS

• All versions prior to 20.4R3-S7;
• 21.1 versions prior to 21.1R3-S5;
• 21.2 versions prior to 21.2R3-S5;
• 21.3 versions prior to 21.3R3-S4;
• 21.4 versions prior to 21.4R3-S3;
• 22.1 versions prior to 22.1R3-S2;
• 22.2 versions prior to 22.2R2-S2, 22.2R3;
• 22.3 versions prior to 22.3R1-S2, 22.3R2.

Juniper Networks Junos OS Evolved

• All versions prior to 21.4R3-S3-EVO;
• 22.1-EVO version 22.1R1-EVO and later versions prior to 22.2R2-S2-EVO, 22.2R3-EVO;
• 22.3-EVO versions prior to 22.3R1-S2-EVO, 22.3R2-EVO.

Configurations that are required for exposure to this issue vary. See the Reference URL resources and additional product-specific documentation.

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-2023-44182.

The following software releases have been updated to resolve this specific issue:

Junos OS: 20.4R3-S7, 21.1R3-S5, 21.2R3-S5, 21.3R3-S4, 21.4R3-S3, 22.1R3-S2, 22.2R2-S2, 22.2R3, 22.3R1-S2, 22.3R2, 22.3R3, 22.4R1, and all subsequent releases.

Junos OS Evolved: 21.4R3-S3-EVO, 22.2R2-S2-EVO, 22.2R3-EVO, 22.3R1-S2-EVO, 22.3R2-EVO, 22.4R1-EVO, and all subsequent releases.

This issue is being tracked as PR 1668201 which is visible on the Customer Support website.

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

There are no known workarounds for this issue.

Methods that may reduce, but not eliminate, the risk of exploitation of these problems, and which do not mitigate or resolve the underlying problems include:

• Discontinuing the use of any unnecessary administrative interfaces to the system
• Using access lists or firewall filters to limit access to the device only from trusted users, hosts, and networks
• Limiting the number of changes performed to a device through administrative interfaces
• Reducing the frequency of unique telemetry events

2023-10-11: Initial Publication
2023-10-20: Removed 21.2R3-S4 from resolved-in releases. Instead customers should use as the target release 21.2R3-S5, and subsequent releases for the 21.2R3 branch.

• 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-2023-44182 at cve.mitre.org
• https://supportportal.juniper.net/JSA73149 [juniper.net]
• https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/junos/interfaces-telemetry/topics/concept/junos-telemetry-interface-grpc-sensors.html
• https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/junos/topics/concept/junos-software-user-interfaces-overview.html