CVE-2025-21601 Denial of service in Junos OS
Unauthenticated attackers can cause a sustained denial of service by sending genuine packets to devices with web management enabled.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2025-21601?
CVE-2025-21601 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Juniper Junos, published on 9 Apr 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
An Improper Following of Specification by Caller vulnerability in web management (J-Web, Captive Portal, 802.1X, Juniper Secure Connect (JSC) of Juniper Networks Junos OS on SRX Series, EX Series, MX240, MX480, MX960, QFX5120 Series, allows an unauthenticated, network-based attacker, sending genuine traffic targeted to the device to cause the CPU to climb until the device becomes unresponsive.
Continuous receipt of these packets will create a sustained Denial of Service (DoS) condition.
This issue affects Junos OS:
* All versions before 21.4R3-S9, * from 22.2 before 22.2R3-S5, * from 22.4 before 22.4R3-S4, * from 23.2 before 23.2R2-S3, * from 23.4 before 23.4R2-S3, * from 24.2 before 24.2R1-S1, 24.2R2.
An indicator of compromise is to review the CPU % of the httpd process in the CLI: e.g. show system processes extensive | match httpd PID nobody 52 0 20M 191M select 2 0:01 80.00% httpd{httpd} <<<<< the percentage of httpd usage if high may be an indicator
Weakness: CWE-573
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-21601?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Juniper Junos.
How do I fix CVE-2025-21601?
No fix has been published for CVE-2025-21601 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-2025-21601 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21601 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-95f3-h98w-ww8w.