CVE-2021-0242
6.5 · MEDIUMOverview
CVE-2021-0242 is a medium-severity vulnerability affecting juniper junos. It was published on April 22, 2021 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 6.5 (MEDIUM).
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 6.5, rated MEDIUM. It requires local or adjacent network access to exploit. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
Technical 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 -- ---------- ----------
Remediation
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from juniper. Update junos to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
Affected Products
| Vendor | Product | Versions | Status |
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2021-0242?
CVE-2021-0242 is a medium-severity vulnerability affecting juniper junos. It was published on April 22, 2021 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 6.5 (MEDIUM).
How severe is CVE-2021-0242?
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 6.5, rated MEDIUM. It requires local or adjacent network access to exploit. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
How do I fix or remediate CVE-2021-0242?
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from juniper. Update junos to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
How can CyberStrike help with CVE-2021-0242?
CyberStrike's AI-powered security agents can automatically detect CVE-2021-0242 across your infrastructure using autonomous pentesting, DAST scanning, and HackBrowser. The platform continuously monitors for known vulnerabilities and provides actionable remediation guidance prioritized by real-world exploitability.
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