CVE-2021-3711 — openssl-src
CRITICALCVE-2021-3711 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) CWE-120 vulnerability in openssl-src. EPSS puts its 30-day exploitation probability at 87.8% (100th percentile). A fix is available for openssl-src — see the affected versions and patch details below.
SM2 Decryption Buffer Overflow
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-2021-3711 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE sits: patch-first territory.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,636 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
openssl-srcReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
In order to decrypt SM2 encrypted data an application is expected to call the API function EVP_PKEY_decrypt(). Typically an application will call this function twice. The first time, on entry, the "out" parameter can be NULL and, on exit, the "outlen" parameter is populated with the buffer size required to hold the decrypted plaintext. The application can then allocate a sufficiently sized buffer and call EVP_PKEY_decrypt() again, but this time passing a non-NULL value for the "out" parameter. A bug in the implementation of the SM2 decryption code means that the calculation of the buffer size required to hold the plaintext returned by the first call to EVP_PKEY_decrypt() can be smaller than the actual size required by the second call. This can lead to a buffer overflow when EVP_PKEY_decrypt() is called by the application a second time with a buffer that is too small. A malicious attacker who is able present SM2 content for decryption to an application could cause attacker chosen data to overflow the buffer by up to a maximum of 62 bytes altering the contents of other data held after the buffer, possibly changing application behaviour or causing the application to crash. The location of the buffer is application dependent but is typically heap allocated. Fixed in OpenSSL 1.1.1l (Affected 1.1.1-1.1.1k).
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | openssl-src | all versions | 111.16.0cargo update -p openssl-src --precise 111.16.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for openssl-src, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update openssl-src to 111.16.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-3711 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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2021-3711 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2021-3711. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-3711 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2021-3711 across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.