CVE-2025-59957: Junos OS: EX4600 Series and QFX5000 Series: An attacker with physical access can open a persistent backdoor

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.8 v3.1)
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: 2025-10-09 · updated 2026-10-08
Weakness: CWE-346

Description

An Origin Validation Error vulnerability in an insufficient protected file of Juniper Networks Junos OS on EX4600 Series and QFX5000 Series allows an unauthenticated attacker with physical access to the device to create a backdoor which allows complete control of the system. When a device isn't configured with a root password, an attacker can modify a specific file. It's contents will be added to the Junos configuration of the device without being visible. This allows for the addition of any configuration unknown to the actual operator, which includes users, IP addresses and other configuration which could allow unauthorized access to the device. This exploit is persistent across reboots and even zeroization. The indicator of compromise is a modified /etc/config/<platform>-defaults[-flex].conf file. Review that file for unexpected configuration statements, or compare it to an unmodified version which can be extracted from the original Juniper software image file. For details on the extraction procedure please contact Juniper Technical Assistance Center (JTAC). To restore the device to a trusted initial configuration the system needs to be reinstalled from physical media. This issue affects Junos OS on EX4600 Series and QFX5000 Series: * All versions before 21.4R3, * 22.2 versions before 22.2R3-S3.

Affected products

Juniper Junos OS: before 21.4; 21.4, 21.4-r1, 21.4-r1-s1, 21.4-r1-s2, 21.4-r2, 21.4-r2-s1 (+11) — fixed in 21.4

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Juniper Junos OS 21.4. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2025-59957 or the next vulnerability affects your stack