A serious security vulnerability has been discovered in Juniper firewalls and switches. A potentially dangerous vulnerability in the software is also fixed in one fell swoop.

New year, new vulnerabilities. Juniper Networks warns of CVE-2024-21591, a vulnerability in the network specialist’s SRX firewalls and EX switches. With a score of 9.8 out of ten on the CVSS scale, this is a security vulnerability that should not be taken lightly. A outside the borders A memory write error can trigger a DoS or give outsiders control of the firewall.

Juno’s OS

Although Juniper Networks says there is no concrete evidence that the vulnerability is being actively exploited, the company urges not to delay patching for too long. Juniper publishes a list of all versions of Junos OS software that are vulnerable and the version to which you can upgrade to protect your firewalls.

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

Installing the patch kills two birds with one stone. Juniper also communicates about CVE-2024-21611, which can also provoke a DoS on your network. Unfortunately for Juniper, this is not a one-off incident: last year, more than ten thousand of the company’s firewalls and switches were vulnerable Refactor code execution. It shows that a firewall alone is not enough to protect your network.

Last week, Juniper made headlines for other reasons. HPE acquired the company for around fourteen billion dollars: the first major acquisition in the tech industry in 2024.