CVE-2021-27878
HIGHCVE-2021-27878 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-04-07) 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.
An issue was discovered in Veritas Backup Exec before 21.2. The communication between a client and an Agent requires successful authentication, which is typically completed over a secure…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-04-07 — including use in ransomware campaigns. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-04-28.
- 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-2021-27878.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-27878 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
An issue was discovered in Veritas Backup Exec before 21.2. The communication between a client and an Agent requires successful authentication, which is typically completed over a secure TLS communication. However, due to a vulnerability in the SHA Authentication scheme, an attacker is able to gain unauthorized access and complete the authentication process. Subsequently, the client can execute data management protocol commands on the authenticated connection. The attacker could use one of these commands to execute an arbitrary command on the system using system privileges.
Affected Products
backup execveritasResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
An issue was discovered in Veritas Backup Exec before 21.2. The communic…
An issue was discovered in Veritas Backup Exec before 21.2. The communic…
An issue was discovered in Veritas Backup Exec before 21.2. The communic…
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-2021-27878 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-27878 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.