CVE-2021-31364
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedAn Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions vulnerability combined with a Race Condition in the flow daemon (flowd) of Juniper Networks Junos OS on SRX300 Series, SRX500 Series, SRX1500, and SRX5000 Series with SPC2 allows an unauthenticated network based attacker sending specific traffic to cause a crash of the flowd/srxpfe process, responsible for traffic forwarding in SRX, which will cause a Denial of Service (DoS). Continued receipt and processing of this specific traffic will create a sustained Denial of Service (DoS) condition. This issue can only occur when specific packets are trying to create the same session and logging for session-close is configured as a policy action. Affected platforms are: SRX300 Series, SRX500 Series, SRX1500, and SRX5000 Series with SPC2. Not affected platforms are: SRX4000 Series, SRX5000 Series with SPC3, and vSRX Series. This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS SRX300 Series, SRX500 Series, SRX1500, and SRX5000 Series with SPC2: All versions prior to 17.4R3-S5; 18.3 versions prior to 18.3R3-S5; 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R3-S9; 19.1 versions prior to 19.1R3-S6; 19.2 versions prior to 19.2R1-S7, 19.2R3-S2; 19.3 versions prior to 19.3R2-S6, 19.3R3-S2; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R1-S4, 19.4R3-S3; 20.1 versions prior to 20.1R2-S2, 20.1R3; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R3; 20.3 versions prior to 20.3R2-S1, 20.3R3; 20.4 versions prior to 20.4R2.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisTwo operations that should be atomic can interleave, so an attacker who wins a narrow timing window reaches an inconsistent, exploitable state. These bugs are subtle and easy to miss in review. Fixing them properly means correct locking or atomic operations around the shared resource.
General guidance for the race condition class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 17.4= 18.3= 18.4= 19.1= 19.2= 19.3= 19.4= 20.1= 20.2= 20.3= 20.4CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- High
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scopedUpgrade to 17.4R3-S5 or later (17.4 branch), 18.3R3-S5 or later (18.3 branch), 18.4R3-S9 or later (18.4 branch), 19.1R3-S6 or later (19.1 branch), or a later release branch (19.2, 19.3, 19.4, 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, or 20.4) as appropriate for your deployment
- 1. Identify the current Junos OS version on the affected SRX device using 'show version'
- 2. Confirm the device is an affected model (SRX300 Series, SRX500 Series, SRX1500, or SRX5000 Series with SPC2) using 'show chassis hardware'
- 3. Verify if session-close logging is configured in any security policy using 'show configuration security policy' | match log | match session-close'
- 4. If session-close logging is configured, note that this is a trigger condition for the vulnerability
- 5. Schedule a maintenance window for the upgrade as this is a control plane service-affecting change
- 6. Download the appropriate fixed Junos OS version from Juniper Networks based on your current version branch
- 7. Upload the new Junos OS image to the device using 'request system software add <package-name>'
- 8. Reboot the device using 'request system reboot'
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-31364 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-31364 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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