CVE-2026-21906
- CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- Published: 2026-01-15T21:16:06.177
An Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions vulnerability in the packet forwarding engine (PFE) of Juniper Networks Junos OS on SRX Series allows an unauthenticated network-based attacker sending a specific ICMP packet through a GRE tunnel to cause the PFE to crash and restart.
When PowerMode IPsec (PMI) and GRE performance acceleration are enabled and the device receives a specific ICMP packet, a crash occurs in the SRX PFE, resulting in traffic loss. PMI is enabled by default, and GRE performance acceleration can be enabled by running the configuration command shown below. PMI is a mode of operation that provides IPsec performance improvements using Vector Packet Processing.
Note that PMI with GRE performance acceleration is only supported on specific SRX platforms.
This issue affects Junos OS on the SRX Series:
* all versions before 21.4R3-S12,
* from 22.4 before 22.4R3-S8,
* from 23.2 before 23.2R2-S5,
* from 23.4 before 23.4R2-S5,
* from 24.2 before 24.2R2-S3,
* from 24.4 before 24.4R2-S1,
* from 25.2 before 25.2R1-S1, 25.2R2.
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How to fix CVE-2026-21906
Description: An Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions vulnerability in the packet forwarding engine (PFE) of Juniper Networks Junos OS on SRX Series allows an unauthenticated network-based attacker sending a specific ICMP packet through a GRE tunnel to cause the PFE to crash and restart. When PowerMode IPsec (PMI) and GRE performance acceleration are enabled and the […]
Exploit Difficulty: EASY
⏱️ Time to exploit: < 1 hour
🛠️ Required skills: Basic web security knowledge
💰 Public exploits: Likely available
How to Fix:
- Check if you're running the affected product
- Update to the latest patched version
- If patching is not immediately possible: restrict network exposure, apply least-privilege access
- Test the fix in a staging environment first
- Review logs for signs of exploitation
- Monitor for IOCs (Indicators of Compromise)
- Enable automatic security updates
- Set up vulnerability monitoring
- Review and harden security configurations
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