How severe is CVE-2021-3537?

CVE-2021-3537 has a CVSS score of 5.9/10, rated MEDIUM. Review your exposure and patch according to your risk tolerance.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2021-3537?

CVE-2021-3537 affects the following packages: nokogiri (RubyGems). Ecosystems affected: RubyGems.

How do I fix CVE-2021-3537?

Update nokogiri to 1.11.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-3537 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2021-3537 in my RubyGems dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for nokogiri. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.

How do I mitigate CVE-2021-3537 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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.

How does O3 Security protect against CVE-2021-3537?

O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2021-3537 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Is CVE-2021-3537 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2021-3537 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2021-3537?

CVE-2021-3537 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 3.5%, placing it in the 88th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2021-3537?

CVE-2021-3537 is classified as NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was CVE-2021-3537 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2021-3537 was published on May 14, 2021 and was last updated on April 16, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

CVE-2021-3537: nokogiri (Medium 5.9)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

3.5%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk88th percentile+3.39%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.

Blast Radius

1 pkg affected

💎nokogiri

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects RubyGems packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

A vulnerability found in libxml2 in versions before 2.9.11 shows that it did not propagate errors while parsing XML mixed content, causing a NULL dereference. If an untrusted XML document was parsed in recovery mode and post-validated, the flaw could be used to crash the application. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
💎RubyGems	`nokogiri`	all versions	1.11.4

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for nokogiri. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update nokogiri to 1.11.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-3537 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
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.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2021-3537 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Tailored to CVE-2021-3537. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

A vulnerability found in libxml2 in versions before 2.9.11 shows that it did not propagate errors while parsing XML mixed content, causing a NULL dereference. If an untrusted XML document was parsed in recovery mode and post-validated, the flaw could be used to crash the application. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2021-3537 in your dependencies?

O3 detects CVE-2021-3537 across RubyGems dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works

CVE-2021-3537