Junos OS: telnetd.real Local Privilege Escalation vulnerabilities in SUID binaries

published 2021-01-15 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-2842

cvss: 7.8; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.4%; EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 33%
public exploits: 0; none known

A local privilege escalation vulnerability in telnetd.real of Juniper Networks Junos OS may allow a locally authenticated shell user to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary commands as root. telnetd.real is shipped with setuid permissions enabled and is owned by the root user, allowing local users to run telnetd.real with root privileges. This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS: all versions prior to 15.1R7-S9; 17.3 versions prior to 17.3R3-S11; 17.4 versions prior to 17.4R2-S12, 17.4R3-S3; 18.1 versions prior to 18.1R3-S11; 18.2 versions prior to 18.2R3-S6; 18.3 versions prior to 18.3R2-S4, 18.3R3-S4; 18.4 versions prior to 18.4R2-S7, 18.4R3-S6; 19.1 versions prior to 19.1R2-S2, 19.1R3-S4; 19.2 versions prior to 19.2R1-S6, 19.2R3-S1; 19.3 versions prior to 19.3R3-S1; 19.4 versions prior to 19.4R2-S2, 19.4R3; 20.1 versions prior to 20.1R1-S4, 20.1R2; 20.2 versions prior to 20.2R2.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1

Juniper Networks Junos OS 15.1R7-S9, 17.3R3-S11, 17.4R2-S12, 17.4R3-S3, 18.1R3-S11, 18.2R3-S6, 18.3R2-S4, 18.3R3-S4, 18.4R2-S7, 18.4R3-S6, 19.1R2-S2, 19.1R3-S4, 19.2R1-S6, 19.2R3-S1, 19.3R3-S1, 19.4R2-S2, 19.4R3, 20.1R1-S4, 20.1R2, 20.2R2

Exploit prediction

0.39% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 33% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	7.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	2.0	7.2	AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Affected products

Juniper Networks Junos OS

Classification

Weakness

CWE-250 Execution with Unnecessary Privileges
CWE-269 Improper Privilege Management

References

kb.juniper.net /JSA11114
vendor-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2021-0223
NVD CVE-2021-0223

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary