CVE-2024-21613: Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved: A link flap causes patroot memory leak which leads to rpd crash

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2024-01-12 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-401

Description

A Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime vulnerability in Routing Protocol Daemon (RPD) of Juniper Networks Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved allows an unauthenticated, adjacent attacker to cause an rpd crash, leading to Denial of Service (DoS). On all Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved platforms, when traffic engineering is enabled for OSPF or ISIS, and a link flaps, a patroot memory leak is observed. This memory leak, over time, will lead to an rpd crash and restart. The memory usage can be monitored using the below command. user@host> show task memory detail | match patroot This issue affects: Juniper Networks Junos OS * All versions earlier than 21.2R3-S3; * 21.3 versions earlier than 21.3R3-S5; * 21.4 versions earlier than 21.4R3-S3; * 22.1 versions earlier than 22.1R3; * 22.2 versions earlier than 22.2R3. Juniper Networks Junos OS Evolved * All versions earlier than 21.3R3-S5-EVO; * 21.4 versions earlier than 21.4R3-EVO; * 22.1 versions earlier than 22.1R3-EVO; * 22.2 versions earlier than 22.2R3-EVO.

Affected products

Juniper Junos OS: 21.2, 21.2-r1, 21.2-r1-s1, 21.2-r1-s2, 21.2-r2, 21.2-r2-s1 (+40)
Juniper Networks Junos OS Evolved: 21.3, 21.3-r1, 21.3-r1-s1, 21.3-r2, 21.3-r2-s1, 21.3-r2-s2 (+24)

References

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