Vulnerability Database

346,508

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2020-1681 — juniper / junos_os_evolved

Reachable Assertion

Receipt of a specifically malformed NDP packet sent from the local area network (LAN) to a device running Juniper Networks Junos OS Evolved can cause the ndp process to crash, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS). The process automatically restarts without intervention, but a continuous receipt of the malformed NDP packets could leaded to an extended Denial of Service condition. During this time, IPv6 neighbor learning will be affected. The issue occurs when parsing the incoming malformed NDP packet. Rather than simply discarding the packet, the process asserts, performing a controlled exit and restart, thereby avoiding any chance of an unhandled exception. Exploitation of this vulnerability is limited to a temporary denial of service, and cannot be leveraged to cause additional impact on the system. This issue is limited to the processing of IPv6 NDP packets. IPv4 packet processing cannot trigger, and is unaffected by this vulnerability. This issue affects all Juniper Networks Junos OS Evolved versions prior to 20.1R2-EVO. Junos OS is unaffected by this vulnerability.

  • Published: Oct 16, 2020
  • Updated: Nov 16, 2025
  • CVE: CVE-2020-1681
  • Severity: Medium
  • Exploit:

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: Medium
  • Score: 6.5
  • AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS v2:

  • Severity: Low
  • Score: 3.3
  • AV:A/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.