CVE-2021-21291 | Subdomain checking of whitelisted domains could allow unintended redirects

Exp

OAuth2 Proxy is an open-source reverse proxy and static file server that provides authentication using Providers (Google, GitHub, and others) to validate accounts by email, domain or group. In OAuth2 Proxy before version 7.0.0, for users that use the whitelist domain feature, a domain that ended in a similar way to the intended domain could have been allowed as a redirect. For example, if a whitelist domain was configured for ".example.com", the intention is that subdomains of example.com are allowed. Instead, "example.com" and "badexample.com" could also match. This is fixed in version 7.0.0 onwards. As a workaround, one can disable the whitelist domain feature and run separate OAuth2 Proxy instances for each subdomain.

Published: 2021-02-02 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2021-21291 is rated Exploit Available (50.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.24%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

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

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2021-21291

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2021-21291

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 2025-11-21 0.27% 0.24% -0.03%
2 2025-11-18 0.24% 0.27% +0.03%
3 2025-07-20 — 0.24% —

Full EPSS history (10 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-21291

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.7 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/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:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.6 2.7 [email protected]
6.1 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/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:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.8 2.7 [email protected]
5.8 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 8.6 4.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2021-21291

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2021-21291

GHSA-4mf2-f3wh-gvf2 · Severity: low · Ecosystem: go — Subdomain checking of whitelisted domains could allow unintended redirects in oauth2-proxy

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-21291

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
oauth2_proxy_project oauth2_proxy < 7.0.0 cpe:2.3:a:oauth2_proxy_project:oauth2_proxy:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-21291

cvelogic Threat Intelligence