CVE-2021-22986
CRITICALCVE-2021-22986 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) and has been used in ransomware campaigns — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
On BIG-IP versions 16.0.x before 16.0.1.1, 15.1.x before 15.1.2.1, 14.1.x before 14.1.4, 13.1.x before 13.1.3.6, and 12.1.x before 12.1.5.3 amd BIG-IQ 7.1.0.x before 7.1.0.3 and 7.0.0.x…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03 — including use in ransomware campaigns. 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-2021-22986.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-22986 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 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
On BIG-IP versions 16.0.x before 16.0.1.1, 15.1.x before 15.1.2.1, 14.1.x before 14.1.4, 13.1.x before 13.1.3.6, and 12.1.x before 12.1.5.3 amd BIG-IQ 7.1.0.x before 7.1.0.3 and 7.0.0.x before 7.0.0.2, the iControl REST interface has an unauthenticated remote command execution vulnerability. Note: Software versions which have reached End of Software Development (EoSD) are not evaluated.
Affected Products
big-ip access policy managerf5big-ip advanced firewall managerf5big-ip advanced web application firewallf5big-ip analyticsf5big-ip application acceleration managerf5big-ip application security managerf5Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
F5 BIG-IP 16.0.x - iControl REST Remote Code Execution (Unauthenticated)
by Al1ex · Apr 2, 2021
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-2021-22986 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Restrict outbound requests from the affected component to an allowlist of hosts, block access to link-local and internal address ranges at the network layer, and require authentication on internal services so a forged request cannot reach them unauthenticated.
How to detect CVE-2021-22986
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2021-22986 -u https://target- Template
- F5 iControl REST - Remote Command Execution
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Successful exploitation of this vulnerability can lead to unauthorized access, data leakage, and potential compromise of the target system.
- Remediation
- Apply the necessary security patches or updates provided by F5 Networks to mitigate the vulnerability.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (rootxharsh, iamnoooob), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-22986 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.