Vulnerabilities > CVE-2021-0289 - Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition vulnerability in Juniper Junos
Summary
When user-defined ARP Policer is configured and applied on one or more Aggregated Ethernet (AE) interface units, a Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition vulnerability between the Device Control Daemon (DCD) and firewall process (dfwd) daemons of Juniper Networks Junos OS allows an attacker to bypass the user-defined ARP Policer. In this particular case the User ARP policer is replaced with default ARP policer. To review the desired ARP Policers and actual state one can run the command "show interfaces <> extensive" and review the output. See further details below. An example output is: show interfaces extensive | match policer Policer: Input: __default_arp_policer__ <<< incorrect if user ARP Policer was applied on an AE interface and the default ARP Policer is displayed Policer: Input: jtac-arp-ae5.317-inet-arp <<< correct if user ARP Policer was applied on an AE interface For all platforms, except SRX Series: This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS: All versions 5.6R1 and all later versions prior to 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R2-S9, 18.4R3-S9 with the exception of 15.1 versions 15.1R7-S10 and later versions; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R3-S3; 20.1 versions prior to 20.1R3; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R3-S2; 20.3 version 20.3R1 and later versions; 20.4 versions prior to 20.4R3; 21.1 versions prior to 21.1R2; This issue does not affect Juniper Networks Junos OS versions prior to 5.6R1. On SRX Series this issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS: 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R2-S9, 18.4R3-S9; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R3-S4; 20.1 versions prior to 20.1R3; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R3-S2; 20.3 version 20.3R1 and later versions; 20.4 versions prior to 20.4R3; 21.1 versions prior to 21.1R2. This issue does not affect 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R1 on SRX Series. This issue does not affect Junos OS Evolved.
Vulnerable Configurations
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- Leveraging Race Conditions via Symbolic Links This attack leverages the use of symbolic links (Symlinks) in order to write to sensitive files. An attacker can create a Symlink link to a target file not otherwise accessible to her. When the privileged program tries to create a temporary file with the same name as the Symlink link, it will actually write to the target file pointed to by the attackers' Symlink link. If the attacker can insert malicious content in the temporary file she will be writing to the sensitive file by using the Symlink. The race occurs because the system checks if the temporary file exists, then creates the file. The attacker would typically create the Symlink during the interval between the check and the creation of the temporary file.
- Leveraging Time-of-Check and Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) Race Conditions This attack targets a race condition occurring between the time of check (state) for a resource and the time of use of a resource. The typical example is the file access. The attacker can leverage a file access race condition by "running the race", meaning that he would modify the resource between the first time the target program accesses the file and the time the target program uses the file. During that period of time, the attacker could do something such as replace the file and cause an escalation of privilege.