Critical RCE Vulnerability in SRX Series Firewalls and EX Series Switches

 Juniper Networks has released updates to address a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in its SRX Series firewalls and EX Series switches.

It is the vulnerability CVE-2024-21591 , rated 9.8 on the CVSS scoring system.

Juniper said: "An out-of-bounds write vulnerability in J-Web of Juniper Networks Junos OS SRX Series and EX Series could allow an unauthenticated network attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) or remote code execution (RCE) and gain root privileges on the device." Juniper was

previously acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) for $14 billion. Juniper said the issue that caused the above vulnerability was due to the use of unsafe functions that allowed hackers to arbitrarily overwrite memory.

Affected versions:

• Junos OS versions older than 20.4R3-S9
• Junos OS 21.2 versions older than 21.2R3-S7
• Junos OS 21.3 versions older than 21.3R3-S5
• Junos OS 21.4 versions older than 21.4R3-S5
• Junos OS 22.1 versions older than 22.1R3-S4
• Junos OS 22.2 versions older than 22.2R3-S3
• Junos OS 22.3 versions older than 22.3R3-S2
• Junos OS 22.4 versions older than 22.4R2-S2, 22.4R3

Versions that fixed the vulnerability: 20.4R3-S9, 21.2R3-S7, 21.3R3-S5, 21.4R3-S5, 22.1R3-S4, 22.2R3-S3, 22.3R3-S2, 22.4R2-S2, 22.4R3, 23.2R1-S1, 23.2R2, 23.4R1 and later.

The company recommends that users disable J-Web or restrict access to only trusted servers to temporarily fix the vulnerability while waiting for full fixes to be released.

Additionally, Juniper Networks also addressed another critical flaw in Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved (CVE-2024-21611, CVSS score: 7.5), which could be exploited for DoS attacks. There

is currently no information about exploitation of these vulnerabilities in the wild, however, vulnerabilities affecting SRX Series firewalls and EX Series switches have been exploited by hackers in the past year.

According to: The Hacker News