How severe is CVE-2021-44228?

CVE-2021-44228 has a CVSS score of 10/10, rated CRITICAL. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2021-44228?

Affected package information for CVE-2021-44228 is not yet fully mapped. Check the official advisory links for details.

How do I fix CVE-2021-44228?

No fixed version has been published for CVE-2021-44228 yet. Monitor the advisory for updates, apply mitigations recommended by the vendor, and use O3 Security to track when a fix becomes available in your stack.

Is CVE-2021-44228 actively exploited in the wild?

Yes. There are 379 known exploit references for CVE-2021-44228, including 3 documented proof-of-concept exploits on Exploit-DB and 216 in-the-wild exploitations observed on GitHub and other sources. Treat this as actively exploitable and prioritize patching immediately. All exploit code should only be run in an isolated sandbox environment for research or authorized testing — never against production systems without explicit written authorization.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2021-44228?

CVE-2021-44228 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 94.4%, placing it in the 100th 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. A score above 50% indicates significantly elevated exploitation risk — immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Is CVE-2021-44228 in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog?

Yes. CVE-2021-44228 (Apache Log4j2 Remote Code Execution Vulnerability) was added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog on 2021-12-10. CISA required all US federal civilian agencies to remediate this vulnerability by 2021-12-24. The required action was: For all affected software assets for which updates exist, the only acceptable remediation actions are: 1) Apply updates; OR 2) remove affected assets from agency networks. Temporary mitigations using one of the measures provided at https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ed-22-02-apache-log4j-recommended-mitigation-measures are only acceptable until updates are available. This CVE has been used in known ransomware campaigns. Being listed in the KEV catalog is the strongest possible confirmation of active exploitation — treat this as a critical priority.

CISA KEV·Added 2021-12-10 — agencies required to remediate by 2021-12-24 · Ransomware

CVE-2021-44228

Q: Can O3 Security detect CVE-2021-44228 in my codebase?

Yes. O3 Security's Impact-Aware SCA scanner identifies CVE-2021-44228 across all affected ecosystems (multiple ecosystems), correlates it against your dependency graph, and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable in your application — eliminating false positives. You can scan your stack for CVE-2021-44228 directly from the O3 platform.

CRITICAL

Also known asGHSA-jfh8-c2jp-5v3q

Published

Dec 10, 2021

Updated

Apr 16, 2026

Affected

0 pkgs

Patched

None yet

Exploits

379 known

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

94.4%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Very High Risk100th percentile0.00%

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.

Description

Apache Log4j2 2.0-beta9 through 2.15.0 (excluding security releases 2.12.2, 2.12.3, and 2.3.1) JNDI features used in configuration, log messages, and parameters do not protect against attacker controlled LDAP and other JNDI related endpoints. An attacker who can control log messages or log message parameters can execute arbitrary code loaded from LDAP servers when message lookup substitution is enabled. From log4j 2.15.0, this behavior has been disabled by default. From version 2.16.0 (along with 2.12.2, 2.12.3, and 2.3.1), this functionality has been completely removed. Note that this vulnerability is specific to log4j-core and does not affect log4net, log4cxx, or other Apache Logging Services projects.

Exploits & PoCs

379

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

EDB-51183remotejava

AD Manager Plus 7122 - Remote Code Execution (RCE)

by Chan Nyein Wai · Apr 1, 2023

Exploit-DB Source

EDB-50592remotejava

Apache Log4j 2 - Remote Code Execution (RCE)

by kozmer · Dec 14, 2021

Exploit-DB Source

EDB-50590remotejava

Apache Log4j2 2.14.1 - Information Disclosure

by leonjza · Dec 14, 2021

Exploit-DB Source

Frequently Asked Questions

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2021-44228 in your stack?

O3 detects CVE-2021-44228 across dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.

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