CVE-2023-28971
Paragon Active Assurance: Enabling the timescaledb enables IP forwarding
- Published
- Updated
- Reserved
- Assigned by
- juniper
Description
An Improper Restriction of Communication Channel to Intended Endpoints vulnerability in the timescaledb feature of Juniper Networks Paragon Active Assurance (PAA) (Formerly Netrounds) allows an attacker to bypass existing firewall rules and limitations used to restrict internal communcations. The Test Agents (TA) Appliance connects to the Control Center (CC) using OpenVPN. TA's are assigned an internal IP address in the 100.70.0.0/16 range. Firewall rules exists to limit communication from TA's to the CC to specific services only. OpenVPN is configured to not allow direct communication between Test Agents in the OpenVPN application itself, and routing is normally not enabled on the server running the CC application. The timescaledb feature is installed as an optional package on the Control Center. When the timescaledb container is started, this causes side-effects by bypassing the existing firewall rules and limitations for Test Agent communications. Note: This issue only affects customers hosting their own on-prem Control Center. The Paragon Active Assurance Software as a Service (SaaS) is not affected by this vulnerability since the timescaledb service is not enabled. This issue affects all on-prem versions of Juniper Networks Paragon Active Assurance prior to 4.1.2.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| juniperCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High7.2 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | High7.2 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.39% · top 67% of all CVEs (7 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.2.
Weakness
Affected products
Juniper Networks · Paragon Active Assurance
- affected unspecified – < 4.1.2
What to do
Solution: The following software releases have been updated to resolve this specific issue: 4.1.2, 4.2.0, and all subsequent releases.
Workaround: If the timescaledb feature is not used - disable the service and disable IP forwarding. root@ncc:~# systemctl stop netrounds-timescaledb root@ncc:~# systemctl disable netrounds-timescaledb root@ncc:~# echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward In case timescaledb feature is used - drop forwarded packets by changing default forward policy to drop packets: Stop running services, to clear dynamic rules ncc services stop openvpn metrics timescaledb Set default DROP policy for forwarding iptables -P FORWARD DROP ip6tables -P FORWARD DROP Install iptables-persistent and save rules apt-get install iptables-persistent iptables-save > /etc/iptables/rules.v4 ip6tables-save > /etc/iptables/rules.v6 Restart services ncc services start openvpn metrics timescaledb
References (1)
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://trackcve.app/cve/CVE-2023-28971)Record last updated .