CVE-2021-36036 — magento/project-community…
HIGHCVE-2021-36036 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.2) CWE-284 vulnerability in magento/project-community-edition. A fix is available for magento/project-community-edition — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Magento improper access control vulnerability within Magento's Media Gallery Upload workflow
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2021-36036.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
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.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-36036 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,156 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
magento/project-community-edition🐘magento/community-edition🐘magento/community-edition🐘magento/community-edition🐘magento/community-editionReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Magento versions 2.4.2 (and earlier), 2.4.2-p1 (and earlier) and 2.3.7 (and earlier) are affected by an improper access control vulnerability within Magento's Media Gallery Upload workflow. By storing a specially crafted file in the website gallery, an authenticated attacker with administrative privilege can gain access to delete the .htaccess file. This could result in the attacker achieving remote code execution.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | magento/project-community-edition | all versions | No fix |
| 🐘Packagist | magento/community-edition | all versions | 2.3.7-p1composer require magento/community-edition:^2.3.7-p1 |
| 🐘Packagist | magento/community-edition | all versions | No fix |
| 🐘Packagist | magento/community-edition | ≥ 2.4.2-p1&&< 2.4.2-p2 | 2.4.2-p2composer require magento/community-edition:^2.4.2-p2 |
| 🐘Packagist | magento/community-edition | all versions | No fix |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for magento/project-community-edition, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
No patched version of magento/project-community-edition has shipped for CVE-2021-36036 yet. Where your build allows, override or pin the dependency away from the vulnerable range, and apply any maintainer-recommended mitigation.
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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2021-36036 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2021-36036. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-36036 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2021-36036 across Packagist dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.