CVE-2021-31368
Junos OS: EX2300 Series, EX3400 Series, and ACX710 might become unresponsive if the out-of-band management port receives a flood of traffic
- Published
- Updated
- Reserved
- Assigned by
- juniper
Description
An Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in the kernel of Juniper Networks JUNOS OS allows an unauthenticated network based attacker to cause 100% CPU load and the device to become unresponsive by sending a flood of traffic to the out-of-band management ethernet port. Continued receipted of a flood will create a sustained Denial of Service (DoS) condition. Once the flood subsides the system will recover by itself. An indication that the system is affected by this issue would be that kernel and netisr process are shown to be using a lot of CPU cycles like in the following example output: user@host> show system processes extensive ... PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE C TIME WCPU COMMAND 16 root -72 - 0K 304K WAIT 1 839:40 88.96% intr{swi1: netisr 0} 0 root 97 - 0K 160K RUN 1 732:43 87.99% kernel{bcm560xgmac0 que} This issue affects Juniper Networks JUNOS OS on EX2300 Series, EX3400 Series, and ACX710: All versions prior to 18.1R3-S13; 18.2 versions prior to 18.2R3-S8; 18.3 versions prior to 18.3R3-S5; 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R2-S8, 18.4R3-S9; 19.1 versions prior to 19.1R3-S5; 19.2 versions prior to 19.2R1-S7, 19.2R3-S3; 19.3 versions prior to 19.3R2-S6, 19.3R3-S2; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R1-S4, 19.4R3-S3; 20.1 versions prior to 20.1R2-S2, 20.1R3; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R3; 20.3 versions prior to 20.3R2-S1, 20.3R3; 20.4 versions prior to 20.4R2.
Timeline
ID reserved
By juniper
- 6 months later
· 6 months later
Published
- 3 years later
· 3 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| juniperCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | High7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 1.1% · top 35% of all CVEs (7 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.5.
Weakness
Affected products
- affected unspecified – < 18.1R3-S13
- affected 18.2 – < 18.2R3-S8
- affected 18.3 – < 18.3R3-S5
- affected 18.4 – < 18.4R2-S8, 18.4R3-S9
- affected 19.1 – < 19.1R3-S5
- affected 19.2 – < 19.2R1-S7, 19.2R3-S3
- affected 19.3 – < 19.3R2-S6, 19.3R3-S2
- affected 19.4 – < 19.4R1-S4, 19.4R3-S3
- affected 20.1 – < 20.1R2-S2, 20.1R3
- affected 20.2 – < 20.2R3
- affected 20.3 – < 20.3R2-S1, 20.3R3
- affected 20.4 – < 20.4R2
What to do
Solution: The following software releases have been updated to resolve this specific issue: 18.1R3-S13, 18.3R3-S5, 18.4R2-S8, 18.4R3-S9, 19.1R3-S5, 19.2R1-S7, 19.2R3-S3, 19.3R2-S6, 19.3R3-S2, 19.4R1-S4, 19.4R3-S3, 20.1R2-S2, 20.1R3, 20.2R3, 20.3R2-S1, 20.3R3, 20.4R2, 21.1R1, and all subsequent releases.
Workaround: There are no viable workarounds for this issue.
Exploitation: Juniper SIRT is not aware of any malicious exploitation of this vulnerability.
References (1)
- https://kb.juniper.net/JSA11230 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://trackcve.app/cve/CVE-2021-31368)Record last updated .