CVE-2021-0242 Junos OS: EX4300: FPC crash upon receipt of specific frames on an interface without L2PT or dot1x configured
An attacker can cause a denial of service on Juniper EX4300 switches by sending specific unicast frames to interfaces without L2PT or dot1x, exhausting DMA buffers and crashing the FPC.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2021-0242?
CVE-2021-0242 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Juniper Junos, published on 22 Apr 2021. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A vulnerability due to the improper handling of direct memory access (DMA) buffers on EX4300 switches on Juniper Networks Junos OS allows an attacker sending specific unicast frames to trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) condition by exhausting DMA buffers, causing the FPC to crash and the device to restart. The DMA buffer leak is seen when receiving these specific, valid unicast frames on an interface without Layer 2 Protocol Tunneling (L2PT) or dot1x configured. Interfaces with either L2PT or dot1x configured are not vulnerable to this issue. When this issue occurs, DMA buffer usage keeps increasing and the following error log messages may be observed: Apr 14 14:29:34.360 /kernel: pid 64476 (pfex_junos), uid 0: exited on signal 11 (core dumped) Apr 14 14:29:33.790 init: pfe-manager (PID 64476) terminated by signal number 11. Core dumped! The DMA buffers on the FPC can be monitored by the executing vty command 'show heap': ID Base Total(b) Free(b) Used(b) % Name -- ---------- ----------- ----------- ----------- --- ----------- 0 4a46000 268435456 238230496 30204960 11 Kernel 1 18a46000 67108864 17618536 49490328 73 Bcm_sdk 2 23737000 117440512 18414552 99025960 84 DMA buf <<<<< keeps increasing 3 2a737000 16777216 16777216 0 0 DMA desc This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS on the EX4300: 17.3 versions prior to 17.3R3-S11; 17.4 versions prior to 17.4R2-S13, 17.4R3-S4; 18.1 versions prior to 18.1R3-S12; 18.2 versions prior to 18.2R2-S8, 18.2R3-S7; 18.3 versions prior to 18.3R3-S4; 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R1-S8, 18.4R2-S7, 18.4R3-S7; 19.1 versions prior to 19.1R1-S6, 19.1R2-S2, 19.1R3-S4; 19.2 versions prior to 19.2R1-S6, 19.2R3-S2; 19.3 versions prior to 19.3R3-S2; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R2-S3, 19.4R3-S1; 20.1 versions prior to 20.1R2; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R2-S1, 20.2R3; 20.3 versions prior to 20.3R1-S1, 20.3R2.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-0242?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Juniper Junos.
How do I fix CVE-2021-0242?
No fix has been published for CVE-2021-0242 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2021-0242 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-0242 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Juniper Junos
- CVE-2023-36845 Juniper Junos OS EX Series and SRX Series PHP External Variable Modification
- CVE-2020-1631 Juniper Junos OS Path Traversal
- CVE-2025-21590 Juniper Junos OS Improper Isolation or Compartmentalization
- CVE-2023-36851 Juniper Junos OS SRX Series Missing Authentication for Critical Function
- CVE-2023-36844 Juniper Junos OS EX Series PHP External Variable Modification
Sources
Also known as GHSA-ppfp-wfpf-4f6c.