"An Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel vulnerability in Juniper Networks Session Smart Router may allow a network-based attacker to bypass authentication and take administrative control of the device," the American networking infrastructure company said in an out-of-cycle security advisory released last week. Juniper Networks has patched a critical vulnerability that allows attackers to bypass authentication and take over Session Smart Router (SSR) devices. For instance, in June last year, Juniper released emergency updates to address another SSR authentication bypass (tracked as CVE-2024-2973) that can be exploited to take full control of unpatched devices. In August, the ShadowServer threat monitoring service warned of threat actors using a watchTowr Labs proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit targeting a remote code execution exploit chain to attack Juniper EX switches and SRX firewalls. According to Juniper's Security Incident Response Team (SIRT), the company has yet to find evidence that the vulnerability has been targeted in attacks. Juniper devices are commonly targeted in attacks due to their use in critical environments and are regularly targeted within less than a week after the vendor releases security updates. One month later, VulnCheck found thousands of Juniper devices still vulnerable to attacks using the same exploit chain.
This Cyber News was published on www.bleepingcomputer.com. Publication date: Tue, 18 Feb 2025 17:10:28 +0000