A vulnerability in the IP next-hop index database in Junos OS 17.3R3 may allow a flood of ARP requests, sent to the management interface, to exhaust the private Internal routing interfaces (IRIs) next-hop limit. Once the IRI next-hop database is full, no further next hops can be learned and existing entries cannot be cleared, leading to a sustained denial of service (DoS) condition. An indicator of compromise for this issue is the report of the following error message: %KERN-4: Nexthop index allocation failed: private index space exhausted This issue only affects the management interface, and does not impact regular transit traffic through the FPCs. This issue also only affects Junos OS 17.3R3. No prior versions of Junos OS are affected by this issue. Affected releases are Juniper Networks Junos OS: 17.3R3.
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Junos | Juniper | 17.3 (including) | 17.3 (including) |
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:
The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.
The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.