CVE-2021-22140

Elastic App Search versions after 7.11.0 and before 7.12.0 contain an XML External Entity Injection issue (XXE) in the App Search web crawler beta feature. Using this vector, an attacker whose website is being crawled by App Search could craft a malicious sitemap.xml to traverse the filesystem of the host running the instance and obtain sensitive files.

Published: 2021-05-13 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2021-22140 is rated Moderate Risk (54/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.27%). 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-2021-22140

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 0.37% 1.27% +0.90%
2 2025-03-30 0.77% 0.37% -0.40%
3 2025-03-29 — 0.77% —

Full EPSS history (9 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-22140

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/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: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:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]
5.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/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:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 10.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2021-22140

OS Trackers for CVE-2021-22140

vendor priority summary link
redhat high — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-22140

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-22140

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
elastic elastic_app_search >= 7.11.0, < 7.12.0 cpe:2.3:a:elastic:elastic_app_search:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-22140

cvelogic Threat Intelligence