CVE-2021-0256: Junos OS: mosquitto Local Privilege Escalation vulnerability in SUID binaries

Severity: low (CVSS 2.1 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2021-04-22 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-250

Description

A sensitive information disclosure vulnerability in the mosquitto message broker of Juniper Networks Junos OS may allow a locally authenticated user with shell access the ability to read portions of sensitive files, such as the master.passwd file. Since mosquitto is shipped with setuid permissions enabled and is owned by the root user, this vulnerability may allow a local privileged user the ability to run mosquitto with root privileges and access sensitive information stored on the local filesystem. This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS: 17.3 versions prior to 17.3R3-S12, 17.4 versions prior to 17.4R3-S4; 18.1 versions prior to 18.1R3-S12; 18.3 versions prior to 18.3R3-S4; 19.1 versions prior to 19.1R3-S4; 19.3 versions prior to 19.3R3-S1, 19.3R3-S2; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R2-S3; 20.1 versions prior to 20.1R2; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R1-S3, 20.2R2, 20.2R3.

Affected products

Juniper Junos OS: 17.3, 17.3-r1, 17.3-r1-s1, 17.3-r1-s4, 17.3-r2, 17.3-r2-s1 (+176)

References

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