An Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in the ARP daemon (arpd) and Network Discovery Protocol (ndp) process of Juniper Networks Junos OS Evolved allows a malicious attacker on the local network to consume memory resources, ultimately resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) condition. Link-layer functions such as IPv4 and/or IPv6 address resolution may be impacted, leading to traffic loss. The processes do not recover on their own and must be manually restarted. Changes in memory usage can be monitored using the following shell commands (header shown for clarity): user@router:/var/log# ps aux | grep arpd USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 31418 59.0 0.7 5702564 247952 ? xxx /usr/sbin/arpd --app-name arpd -I object_select --shared-objects-mode 3 user@router:/var/log# ps aux | grep arpd USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 31418 49.1 1.0 5813156 351184 ? xxx /usr/sbin/arpd --app-name arpd -I object_select --shared-objects-mode 3 Memory usage can be monitored for the ndp process in a similar fashion: user@router:/var/log# ps aux | grep ndp USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 14935 0.0 0.1 5614052 27256 ? Ssl Jun15 0:17 /usr/sbin/ndp -I no_tab_chk,object_select --app-name ndp --shared-obje user@router:/var/log# ps aux | grep ndp USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 14935 0.0 0.1 5725164 27256 ? Ssl Jun15 0:17 /usr/sbin/ndp -I no_tab_chk,object_select --app-name ndp --shared-obje This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS Evolved: 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R2-S3-EVO; 20.1 versions prior to 20.1R2-S4-EVO; all versions of 20.2-EVO. This issue does not affect Juniper Networks Junos OS Evolved versions prior to 19.4R2-EVO.
| Software | From | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| juniper / junos_os_evolved | 20.1-r1 | 20.1-r1.x |
| juniper / junos_os_evolved | 20.1-r1-s1 | 20.1-r1-s1.x |
| juniper / junos_os_evolved | 20.1-r2-s2 | 20.1-r2-s2.x |
| juniper / junos_os_evolved | 20.1-r2-s1 | 20.1-r2-s1.x |
| juniper / junos_os_evolved | 20.1-r2 | 20.1-r2.x |
| juniper / junos_os_evolved | 19.4-r1 | 19.4-r1.x |
| juniper / junos_os_evolved | 20.1-r2-s3 | 20.1-r2-s3.x |
| juniper / junos_os_evolved | 20.2 | 20.2.x |
| juniper / junos_os_evolved | 20.1 | 20.1.x |
| juniper / junos_os_evolved | 19.4-r2-s1 | 19.4-r2-s1.x |
| juniper / junos_os_evolved | 19.4-r2-s2 | 19.4-r2-s2.x |
| juniper / junos_os_evolved | 19.4-r2 | 19.4-r2.x |
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.