CVE-2021-22502 — Operation Bridge Reporter
CRITICALCVE-2021-22502 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) OS Command Injection vulnerability in microfocus operation bridge reporter. 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.
Remote Code execution vulnerability in Micro Focus Operation Bridge Reporter (OBR) product, affecting version 10.40. The vulnerability could be exploited to allow Remote Code Execution…
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-2021-22502.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-22502 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 394,415 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Remote Code execution vulnerability in Micro Focus Operation Bridge Reporter (OBR) product, affecting version 10.40. The vulnerability could be exploited to allow Remote Code Execution on the OBR server.
Affected Products
operation bridge reportermicrofocusResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Remote Code execution vulnerability in Micro Focus Operation Bridge Repo…
Remote Code execution vulnerability in Micro Focus Operation Bridge Repo…
Remote Code execution vulnerability in Micro Focus Operation Bridge Repo…
Remote Code execution vulnerability in Micro Focus Operation Bridge Repo…
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every microfocus operation bridge reporter deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2021-22502 yet — track the microfocus operation bridge reporter advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds 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. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
How to detect CVE-2021-22502
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2021-22502 -u https://target- Template
- Micro Focus Operations Bridge Reporter - Remote Code Execution
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Unauthenticated attackers can execute arbitrary commands on the Operations Bridge Reporter server, leading to complete system compromise and access to all monitoring data.
- Remediation
- Apply the latest security patches or updates provided by Micro Focus to mitigate this vulnerability.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (pikpikcu), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-22502 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.