CVE-2021-42258
CRITICALCVE-2021-42258 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) SQL Injection vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) 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.
BQE BillQuick Web Suite 2018 through 2021 before 22.0.9.1 allows SQL injection for unauthenticated remote code execution, as exploited in the wild in October 2021 for ransomware installation.…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03 — including use in ransomware campaigns. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2021-11-17.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- 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-2021-42258.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-42258 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
BQE BillQuick Web Suite 2018 through 2021 before 22.0.9.1 allows SQL injection for unauthenticated remote code execution, as exploited in the wild in October 2021 for ransomware installation. SQL injection can, for example, use the txtID (aka username) parameter. Successful exploitation can include the ability to execute arbitrary code as MSSQLSERVER$ via xp_cmdshell.
Affected Products
billquick web suitebqeResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
BQE BillQuick Web Suite 2018 through 2021 before 22.0.9.1 allows SQL inj…
BQE BillQuick Web Suite 2018 through 2021 before 22.0.9.1 allows SQL inj…
BQE BillQuick Web Suite 2018 through 2021 before 22.0.9.1 allows SQL inj…
BQE BillQuick Web Suite 2018 through 2021 before 22.0.9.1 allows SQL inj…
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-2021-42258 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Until you can upgrade, make sure every query built from user input uses parameterised statements or a prepared-statement API rather than string concatenation, and reduce the database account's privileges so an injected query cannot read or alter data beyond what the feature needs.
How to detect CVE-2021-42258
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2021-42258 -u https://target- Template
- BillQuick Web Suite SQL Injection
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Successful exploitation of this vulnerability can lead to unauthorized access, data leakage, and potential compromise of the entire system.
- Remediation
- Apply the latest security patches and updates provided by the vendor to fix the SQL Injection vulnerability in the BillQuick Web Suite.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (dwisiswant0), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-42258 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.