CVE-2021-20179

A flaw was found in pki-core. An attacker who has successfully compromised a key could use this flaw to renew the corresponding certificate over and over again, as long as it is not explicitly revoked. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity.

Published: 2021-03-15 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2021-20179 is rated Moderate Risk (55.6/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.19%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2021-20179

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.29% 1.19% +0.90%
2 2026-02-02 0.40% 0.29% -0.10%
3 2025-03-30 — 0.40% —

Full EPSS history (11 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-20179

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
8.1 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.8 5.2 [email protected]
5.5 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:S)
A single authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 8.0 4.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2021-20179

OS Trackers for CVE-2021-20179

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2021-20179 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (dogtag-pki), 1 status rows across 1 suites (bullseye): resolved 1. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2021-20179
redhat high — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-20179
ubuntu high CVE-2021-20179 high priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (dogtag-pki), 16 status rows across 16 suites (bionic, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 9, DNE 5, ignored 1, not-affected 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2021-20179

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-20179

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
dogtagpki dogtagpki < 10.5.0 cpe:2.3:a:dogtagpki:dogtagpki:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
dogtagpki dogtagpki >= 10.5.1, < 10.8.0 cpe:2.3:a:dogtagpki:dogtagpki:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
dogtagpki dogtagpki >= 10.8.1, < 10.9.0 cpe:2.3:a:dogtagpki:dogtagpki:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
dogtagpki dogtagpki >= 10.9.1, < 10.10.0 cpe:2.3:a:dogtagpki:dogtagpki:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
dogtagpki dogtagpki >= 10.10.1, < 10.11.0 cpe:2.3:a:dogtagpki:dogtagpki:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat certificate_system 10.0 cpe:2.3:a:redhat:certificate_system:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux 8.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 32 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:32:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 33 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:33:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 34 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:34:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-20179

URL Tags
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1914379 Issue Tracking Patch Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/dogtagpki/pki/pull/3474 Patch Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/dogtagpki/pki/pull/3475 Patch Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/dogtagpki/pki/pull/3476 Patch Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/dogtagpki/pki/pull/3477 Patch Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/dogtagpki/pki/pull/3478 Patch Third Party Advisory
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/DDOLFOLEIV7I4EUC3SCZBXL6E2ER7ZEN/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/HRE44N6P24AEDKRMWK7RPRLMCUUBRJII/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/R3I7BRAHLE2WWSY76W3CKFCF5WSSAE24/
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