CVE-2021-0257 Denial of service in Junos OS
Layer 2 events on CE devices cause memory leaks in Juniper MX/EX9200 MPCs, leading to MPC restarts and temporary traffic interruption.
- 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-2021-0257?
CVE-2021-0257 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
On Juniper Networks MX Series and EX9200 Series platforms with Trio-based MPCs (Modular Port Concentrators) where Integrated Routing and Bridging (IRB) interfaces are configured and mapped to a VPLS instance or a Bridge-Domain, certain Layer 2 network events at Customer Edge (CE) devices may cause memory leaks in the MPC of Provider Edge (PE) devices which can cause an out of memory condition and MPC restart. When this issue occurs, there will be temporary traffic interruption until the MPC is restored. An administrator can use the following CLI command to monitor the status of memory usage level of the MPC: user@device> show system resource-monitor fpc FPC Resource Usage Summary Free Heap Mem Watermark : 20 % Free NH Mem Watermark : 20 % Free Filter Mem Watermark : 20 % * - Watermark reached Slot # % Heap Free RTT Average RTT 1 87 PFE # % ENCAP mem Free % NH mem Free % FW mem Free 0 NA 88 99 1 NA 89 99 When the issue is occurring, the value of “% NH mem Free” will go down until the MPC restarts. This issue affects MX Series and EX9200 Series with Trio-based PFEs (Packet Forwarding Engines), including MX-MPC1-3D, MX-MPC1E-3D, MX-MPC2-3D, MX-MPC2E-3D, MPC-3D-16XGE, and CHAS-MXxx Series MPCs. No other products or platforms are affected by this issue. This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS on MX Series, EX9200 Series: 17.3 versions prior to 17.3R3-S10; 17.4 versions prior to 17.4R3-S3; 18.2 versions prior to 18.2R3-S7; 18.3 versions prior to 18.3R3-S4; 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R3-S6; 19.2 versions prior to 19.2R3-S2; 19.3 versions prior to 19.3R3-S1; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R2-S2, 19.4R3; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R1-S3, 20.2R2; 20.3 versions prior to 20.3R1-S1,, 20.3R2. This issue does not affect Juniper Networks Junos OS: 17.3 versions prior to 17.3R3-S8; 17.4 versions prior to 17.4R3-S2; 18.1; 18.2 versions prior to 18.2R3-S4; 18.3 versions prior to 18.3R3-S2; 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R3-S1; 19.1; 19.2 versions prior to 19.2R2; 19.3 versions prior to 19.3R3; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R2.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-0257?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Juniper Junos.
How do I fix CVE-2021-0257?
No fix has been published for CVE-2021-0257 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-2021-0257 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-0257 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-gcm7-8qcf-55m9.