CVE-2021-21972

CRITICAL severity · CVSS 9.8 · Path traversal · actively exploited (CISA KEV)

9.8CVSS CRITICAL ● exploited ⚠ ransomware

🔴 Actively exploited in the wild (CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities). ⚠ Known use in ransomware campaigns. Added to KEV 2021-11-03. US federal agencies must patch by 2021-11-17.

Summary

The vSphere Client (HTML5) contains a remote code execution vulnerability in a vCenter Server plugin. A malicious actor with network access to port 443 may exploit this issue to execute commands with unrestricted privileges on the underlying operating system that hosts vCenter Server. This affects VMware vCenter Server (7.x before 7.0 U1c, 6.7 before 6.7 U3l and 6.5 before 6.5 U3n) and VMware Cloud Foundation (4.x before 4.2 and 3.x before 3.10.1.2).

Impact & exploitability

Attack vectorNetwork

Attack complexityLow

Privileges requiredNone

User interactionNone

Confidentiality impactHigh

Integrity impactHigh

Availability impactHigh

Exploit probability (EPSS)94%

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products we track (1)

VMware vCenter

Recommendation

This vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild — patch affected products urgently. Open any affected product above for its exact safe version.

CVE-2021-21972

Summary

Impact & exploitability

Affected products we track (1)

Recommendation

Additional information