This vulnerability involves the use of multiple resources with duplicate identifiers in the iked process of Junos OS on MX with SPC3 and SRX Series devices. When a large number of VPN negotiations fail, the peer index assigned to VPN peers rolls over and duplicates existing indexes. This causes the iked daemon to crash repeatedly, leading to denial of service by disrupting VPN connection establishment and rekeying. The vulnerability affects all versions before 23.2R2-S7, 23.4 versions before 23.4R2-S6, 24.2 versions before 24.2R2-S3, 24.4 versions before 24.4R2-S4, and 25.2 versions before 25.2R1-S1. The system must be rebooted to restore service after the crash. The iked process must be running to be vulnerable, and the issue cannot be monitored directly via index values but through tunnel events.

An unauthenticated, network-based attacker can cause denial of service by triggering repeated iked process crashes through failed VPN negotiations, preventing new VPN connections and rekeying of existing ones. This disrupts VPN service availability on affected devices until a system reboot is performed. There is no impact on confidentiality or integrity reported.

A patch is available for this vulnerability. Affected users should upgrade to versions 23.2R2-S7 or later, 23.4R2-S6 or later, 24.2R2-S3 or later, 24.4R2-S4 or later, or 25.2R1-S1 or later to remediate the issue. Since this is a cloud-managed service, Juniper manages remediation for the cloud-hosted components; users should consult the vendor advisory for confirmation and apply updates accordingly. Monitoring tunnel up/down events can help detect potential exploitation but does not prevent the issue. Rebooting the system restores service after a crash.