CVE-2021-23449 Vulnerability Analysis & Exploit Details

CVE-2021-23449
Vulnerability Scoring

9.8
/10
Critical Risk

As a catastrophic security flaw, CVE-2021-23449 has severe implications, demanding immediate intervention.

Attack Complexity Details

  • Attack Complexity: Low
    Exploits can be performed without significant complexity or special conditions.
  • Attack Vector: Network
    Vulnerability is exploitable over a network without physical access.
  • Privileges Required: None
    No privileges are required for exploitation.
  • Scope: Unchanged
    Exploit remains within the originally vulnerable component.
  • User Interaction: None
    No user interaction is necessary for exploitation.

CVE-2021-23449 Details

Status: Modified

Last updated: 🕠 21 Nov 2024, 05:51 UTC
Originally published on: 🕔 18 Oct 2021, 17:15 UTC

Time between publication and last update: 1129 days

CVSS Release: version 3

CVSS3 Source

report@snyk.io

CVSS3 Type

Secondary

CVSS3 Vector

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

CVE-2021-23449 Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2021-23449: This affects the package vm2 before 3.9.4 via a Prototype Pollution attack vector, which can lead to execution of arbitrary code on the host machine.

Assessing the Risk of CVE-2021-23449

Access Complexity Graph

The exploitability of CVE-2021-23449 depends on two key factors: attack complexity (the level of effort required to execute an exploit) and privileges required (the access level an attacker needs).

Exploitability Analysis for CVE-2021-23449

With low attack complexity and no required privileges, CVE-2021-23449 is an easy target for cybercriminals. Organizations should prioritize immediate mitigation measures to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches.

Understanding AC and PR

A lower complexity and fewer privilege requirements make exploitation easier. Security teams should evaluate these aspects to determine the urgency of mitigation strategies, such as patch management and access control policies.

Attack Complexity (AC) measures the difficulty in executing an exploit. A high AC means that specific conditions must be met, making an attack more challenging, while a low AC means the vulnerability can be exploited with minimal effort.

Privileges Required (PR) determine the level of system access necessary for an attack. Vulnerabilities requiring no privileges are more accessible to attackers, whereas high privilege requirements limit exploitation to authorized users with elevated access.

CVSS Score Breakdown Chart

Above is the CVSS Sub-score Breakdown for CVE-2021-23449, illustrating how Base, Impact, and Exploitability factors combine to form the overall severity rating. A higher sub-score typically indicates a more severe or easier-to-exploit vulnerability.

CIA Impact Analysis

Below is the Impact Analysis for CVE-2021-23449, showing how Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability might be affected if the vulnerability is exploited. Higher values usually signal greater potential damage.

  • Confidentiality: High
    Exploiting CVE-2021-23449 can result in unauthorized access to sensitive data, severely compromising data privacy.
  • Integrity: High
    CVE-2021-23449 could allow unauthorized modifications to data, potentially affecting system reliability and trust.
  • Availability: High
    CVE-2021-23449 can disrupt system operations, potentially causing complete denial of service (DoS).

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

The EPSS score estimates the probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the near future.

EPSS Score: 0.743% (probability of exploit)

EPSS Percentile: 81.12% (lower percentile = lower relative risk)
This vulnerability is less risky than approximately 18.879999999999995% of others.

CVE-2021-23449 References

External References

CWE Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-1321

CAPEC Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification

  • Accessing Functionality Not Properly Constrained by ACLs CAPEC-1 In applications, particularly web applications, access to functionality is mitigated by an authorization framework. This framework maps Access Control Lists (ACLs) to elements of the application's functionality; particularly URL's for web apps. In the case that the administrator failed to specify an ACL for a particular element, an attacker may be able to access it with impunity. An attacker with the ability to access functionality not properly constrained by ACLs can obtain sensitive information and possibly compromise the entire application. Such an attacker can access resources that must be available only to users at a higher privilege level, can access management sections of the application, or can run queries for data that they otherwise not supposed to.
  • Exploiting Incorrectly Configured Access Control Security Levels CAPEC-180 An attacker exploits a weakness in the configuration of access controls and is able to bypass the intended protection that these measures guard against and thereby obtain unauthorized access to the system or network. Sensitive functionality should always be protected with access controls. However configuring all but the most trivial access control systems can be very complicated and there are many opportunities for mistakes. If an attacker can learn of incorrectly configured access security settings, they may be able to exploit this in an attack.
  • Manipulating User-Controlled Variables CAPEC-77 This attack targets user controlled variables (DEBUG=1, PHP Globals, and So Forth). An adversary can override variables leveraging user-supplied, untrusted query variables directly used on the application server without any data sanitization. In extreme cases, the adversary can change variables controlling the business logic of the application. For instance, in languages like PHP, a number of poorly set default configurations may allow the user to override variables.

Vulnerable Configurations

  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:-:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:-:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.1.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.1.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.1.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.1.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.2.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.2.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.2.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.2.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.2.2:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.2.2:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.2.3:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.2.3:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.2.4:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:0.2.4:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:1.0.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:1.0.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:1.0.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:1.0.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:2.0.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:2.0.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:2.0.2:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:2.0.2:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.0.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.0.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.0.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.0.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.1.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.1.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.2.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.2.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.3.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.3.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.3.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.3.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.4.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.4.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.4.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.4.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.4.3:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.4.3:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.4.4:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.4.4:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.4.5:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.4.5:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.4.6:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.4.6:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.5.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.5.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.5.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.5.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.5.2:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.5.2:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.2:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.2:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.3:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.3:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.4:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.4:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.5:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.5:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.6:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.6:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.7:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.7:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.8:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.8:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.9:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.9:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.10:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.10:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.11:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.6.11:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.7.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.7.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.8.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.8.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.8.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.8.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.8.2:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.8.2:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.8.3:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.8.3:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.8.4:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.8.4:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.9.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.9.0:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.9.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.9.1:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.9.2:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.9.2:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.9.3:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:vm2_project:vm2:3.9.3:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*

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