Security Resilience

CVE-2024-21609

Juniper Junos ≤ 20.4

Published
12 April 2024
Modified
10 April 2025
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v4 7.1
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:A/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:L/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0029 21th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2024-21609 is a high-severity Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime (CWE-401) vulnerability in Juniper Junos. Its CVSS base score is 7.1 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Junk Data (T1001.001); ranked at the 21th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

A Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime vulnerability in the IKE daemon (iked) of Juniper Networks Junos OS on MX Series with SPC3, and SRX Series allows an administratively adjacent attacker which is able to successfully establish IPsec tunnels…

more

to cause a Denial of Service (DoS). If specific values for the IPsec parameters local-ip, remote-ip, remote ike-id, and traffic selectors are sent from the peer, a memory leak occurs during every IPsec SA rekey which is carried out with a specific message sequence. This will eventually result in an iked process crash and restart. The iked process memory consumption can be checked using the below command: user@host> show system processes extensive | grep iked PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE C TIME WCPU COMMAND 56903 root 31 0 4016M 2543M CPU0 0 2:10 10.50% iked This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS: * All versions earlier than 20.4R3-S9; * 21.2 versions earlier than 21.2R3-S7; * 21.3 versions earlier than 21.3R3-S5; * 21.4 versions earlier than 21.4R3-S4; * 22.1 versions earlier than 22.1R3-S3; * 22.2 versions earlier than 22.2R3-S2; * 22.3 versions earlier than 22.3R3; * 22.4 versions earlier than 22.4R3; * 23.2 versions earlier than 23.2R1-S2, 23.2R2.

CWE(s)
CWE-401

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1001.001 Junk Data Command And Control
Adversaries may add junk data to protocols used for command and control to make detection more difficult.
attack.mitre.org →
T1001.002 Steganography Command And Control
Adversaries may use steganographic techniques to hide command and control traffic to make detection efforts more difficult.
attack.mitre.org →
T1001.003 Protocol or Service Impersonation Command And Control
Adversaries may impersonate legitimate protocols or web service traffic to disguise command and control activity and thwart analysis efforts.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003 OS Credential Dumping Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to dump credentials to obtain account login and credential material, normally in the form of a hash or a clear text password.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.001 LSASS Memory Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access credential material stored in the process memory of the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS).
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.004 LSA Secrets Credential Access
Adversaries with SYSTEM access to a host may attempt to access Local Security Authority (LSA) secrets, which can contain a variety of different credential materials, such as credentials for service accounts.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-22417Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2025-30658Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2024-39550Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2024-47493Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2025-30647Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2026-33775Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2023-44193Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2026-33782Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2023-22410Same product: Juniper Junos
CVE-2024-39539Same product: Juniper Junos

Affected Assets

juniper
junos
20.4, 21.2, 21.3, 21.4, 22.1 · ≤ 20.4

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SA-11 Developer Testing and Evaluation good match

Developer testing and evaluation (static analysis, fuzzing, or runtime leak detection) directly finds missing deallocation.

SA-15 Development Process, Standards, and Tools partial match

Requiring documented development standards and tools can mandate memory-management disciplines that avoid leaks at introduction.

SA-8 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles partial match

Engineering principles applied during development can require explicit resource-release patterns that stop memory leaks from being coded.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 partial match
blocks

Secure SDLC practices directly enforce proper memory allocation/deallocation via coding standards, reviews, and tooling.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

A.5.14 Information transfer partial match
removes
A.5.15 Access control partial match
removes
A.5.16 Identity management partial match
removes
A.5.17 Authentication information partial match
removes
A.5.18 Access rights partial match
removes
A.8.10 Information deletion partial match
removes

References