Juniper Junos OS SRX Series Missing Authentication for Critical Function Vulnerability
CVE-2023-36851 · Juniper Junos OS · Published 2023-09-27
How bad would it be?
5.3 out of 10
CVSS rates it medium.
How likely is it to be used?
1.1%
Estimated chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 66% of all scored flaws (EPSS, 2026-10-29).
Is it already being used?
Yes
CISA has seen it exploited in real attacks. For US government agencies the fix is deadline passed 1078 days ago (2023-11-17).
What CISA says to do
Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
Juniper Junos OS on SRX Series contains a missing authentication for critical function vulnerability that allows an unauthenticated, network-based attacker to cause limited impact to the file system integrity. With a specific request to webauth_operation.php that doesn't require authentication, an attacker is able to upload arbitrary files via J-Web, leading to a loss of integrity for a certain part of the file system, which may allow chaining to other vulnerabilities.
A Missing Authentication for Critical Function vulnerability in Juniper Networks Junos OS on SRX Series allows an unauthenticated, network-based attacker to cause limited impact to the file system integrity.
With a specific request to
webauth_operation.php
that doesn't require authentication, an attacker is able to upload and download arbitrary files via J-Web, leading to a loss of
integrity or confidentiality, which may allow chaining to other vulnerabilities.
This issue affects Juniper Networks Junos OS on SRX Series:
*
21.2 versions prior to 21.2R3-S8;
* 21.4
versions prior to
21.4R3-S6;
* 22.1
versions prior to
22.1R3-S5;
* 22.2
versions prior to
22.2R3-S3;
* 22.3
versions prior to
22.3R3-S2;
* 22.4 versions prior to 22,4R2-S2, 22.4R3;
* 23.2 versions prior to
23.2R1-S2, 23.2R2.
Understand the kind of weakness behind this flaw. These resources teach the weakness, rather than reproduce this specific CVE. Follow the vendor's advice above to fix the affected product.
Missing authentication
A sensitive function is reachable without proving who is using it.
CWE is a catalogue of weakness types. Labels come from the sources shown and can differ or change. Resource matches reviewed 16 October 2026.
On SentryFeed
No story in the last 14 days has mentioned it.
Exploited flaws from CISA's KEV catalogue. Chance of exploitation from EPSS by FIRST. Descriptions and scores from the NVD. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.