CVE-2021-30858
HIGHCVE-2021-30858 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) Use After Free 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.
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.
- 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-2021-30858.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-30858 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
A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management. This issue is fixed in iOS 14.8 and iPadOS 14.8, macOS Big Sur 11.6. Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited.
Affected Products
ipadosappleiphone osapplemacosappledebian linuxdebianfedorafedoraprojectResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management. Th…
A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management. Th…
A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management. Th…
A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management. Th…
A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management. Th…
A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management. Th…
A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management. Th…
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-2021-30858 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
This flaw is rated as having Moderate impact considering the ability of an attacker to perform arbitrary code execution is limited to cases where a web browser is involved. Red Hat expects customers to not feed untrusted input into WebKit.
This flaw can be mitigated by either disabling JavaScript or by disabling IndexedDBSource: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2021-30858 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | webkitgtk4-0:2.28.2-3.el7 | RHSA-2022:0059 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | webkit2gtk3-0:2.30.4-3.el8_4 | RHSA-2021:4097 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Extended Update Support | webkit2gtk3-0:2.24.4-4.el8_1 | RHSA-2021:4686 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Extended Update Support | webkit2gtk3-0:2.24.4-4.el8_2 | RHSA-2022:0075 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-30858 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.