CVE-2021-22893
Pulse Connect Secure 9.0R3/9.1R1 and higher is vulnerable to an authentication bypass vulnerability exposed by the Windows File Share Browser and Pulse Secure…
- Severity
- 10.0 / 10
- Critical · CVSS 3.1
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 47.17%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 98.84% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- Yes
- In CISA's catalog since Nov 3, 2021
- Fix
- None yet
- No fixed version published
Description
Pulse Connect Secure 9.0R3/9.1R1 and higher is vulnerable to an authentication bypass vulnerability exposed by the Windows File Share Browser and Pulse Secure Collaboration features of Pulse Connect Secure that can allow an unauthenticated user to perform remote arbitrary code execution on the Pulse Connect Secure gateway. This vulnerability has been exploited in the wild.
How to fix
No fixed version has been published yet. Until one is, remove or replace the package, or turn off or isolate the affected feature. This page updates when a fix ships.
Severity breakdown
CVSS 3.1 10.0
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
Weakness
CWE-287: Improper Authentication
When an actor claims to have a given identity, the product does not prove or insufficiently proves that the claim is correct.
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design: Use an authentication framework or library such as the OWASP ESAPI Authentication feature.
CWE-416: Use After Free
The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design: Choose a language that provides automatic memory management.
- Implementation: When freeing pointers, be sure to set them to NULL once they are freed. However, the utilization of multiple or complex data structures may lower the usefulness of this strategy.
References
Advisories
Other links
Timeline
- Published
- Added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
- Remediation due for U.S. federal agencies
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-f9x3-7vq9-cph6 Laravel TokenGuard authentication bypass through non-string API credentials | Critical | Same weakness, CWE-287 |
| GHSA-r4xp-prcw-77qf better-auth: OAuth Proxy lets an attacker sign in as another user | Critical | Same weakness, CWE-287 |
| GHSA-965c-763c-88jm better-auth: OAuth state can be used as a Magic Link to sign in as another user | Critical | Same weakness, CWE-287 |
| GO-2026-6773 Nginx UI: Casdoor SSO callback uses a constant `state` parameter (login CSRF) | High | Same weakness, CWE-287 |
| GO-2026-6786 Nginx UI: TOTP / passkey enrolment requires no re-authentication, enabling persistent account takeover | High | Same weakness, CWE-287 |
| GHSA-xv7q-fvmc-jx96 Vikunja: OIDC email-fallback account linking ignores email_verified, enabling local-account takeover | High | Same weakness, CWE-287 |
| GHSA-68w4-83fh-f2w8 pyload-ng: getUserData/get_userdata exposed at Perms.ANY allow any authenticated account to brute-force the administrator password | High | Same weakness, CWE-287 |
| GHSA-r44w-v6gf-x3p6 pyLoad has an authentication bypass in API key validation (check_apikey cache) | High | Same weakness, CWE-287 |
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