CVE-2021-1498
CRITICALCVE-2021-1498 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) OS Command Injection vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Multiple vulnerabilities in the web-based management interface of Cisco HyperFlex HX could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to perform command injection attacks against an…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2021-11-17.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2021-1498.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-1498 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Multiple vulnerabilities in the web-based management interface of Cisco HyperFlex HX could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to perform command injection attacks against an affected device. For more information about these vulnerabilities, see the Details section of this advisory.
Affected Products
hyperflex hx data platformciscoResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Multiple vulnerabilities in the web-based management interface of Cisco …
Multiple vulnerabilities in the web-based management interface of Cisco …
Multiple vulnerabilities in the web-based management interface of Cisco …
Multiple vulnerabilities in the web-based management interface of Cisco …
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2021-1498 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
How to detect CVE-2021-1498
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2021-1498 -u https://target- Template
- Cisco HyperFlex HX Data Platform - Remote Command Execution
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the affected system.
- Remediation
- Apply the necessary security patches or updates provided by Cisco to mitigate this vulnerability.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (gy741), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-1498 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.