CVE-2023-28971
HIGHDescription
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.
How to fix
TridentStack Control can deploy fixes like this automatically across your Windows, macOS, and Linux fleet. See how it works
Remediation is compiled from vendor and distribution security advisories. Always confirm against the linked source for your exact version and platform.
CVSS v3 Vector
Exploitability
Impact
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
Exploit Intelligence
Low risk: more likely to be exploited than 31% of all known CVEs.
References
Related Vulnerabilities
Other CWE-923 vulnerabilities, ordered by exploit likelihood. View all
| CVE | Severity | CVSS | EPSS | Exploited | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2024-24974 | High | 7.5 | 9.8% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2025-48999 | High | 8.8 | 7.8% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2021-38487 | High | 8.2 | 3.3% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2019-17440 | Critical | 10.0 | 1.7% | - | - |
| CVE-2022-2663 | Medium | 5.3 | 1.5% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2021-32635 | Medium | 6.3 | 1.4% | - | - |
Common questions
How do I fix CVE-2023-28971?
Upgrade paragon active assurance to 4.1.2 or later.
Is CVE-2023-28971 being actively exploited?
Not that we know of. CVE-2023-28971 is not in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Its EPSS score of 0.38% is the estimated probability that it will be exploited in the next 30 days. That is higher than 31% of all scored CVEs.
How severe is CVE-2023-28971?
CVE-2023-28971 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.2, rated high. CVSS rates the technical impact if the vulnerability is exploited, not how likely that is, so weigh it alongside the exploit-prediction score when you decide what to patch first.
What does CVE-2023-28971 affect?
Published advisories record a fix for paragon active assurance (NVD). Only products with a sourced advisory are listed, so treat this as what we can cite rather than a complete inventory.
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This product uses NVD data but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS scores courtesy of FIRST.org (https://www.first.org/epss). Source: CISA KEV Catalog. Data as of 2024-11-21.