CVE-2021-3698

A flaw was found in Cockpit in versions prior to 260 in the way it handles the certificate verification performed by the System Security Services Daemon (SSSD). This flaw allows client certificates to authenticate successfully, regardless of the Certificate Revocation List (CRL) configuration or the certificate status. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to confidentiality.

Published: 2022-03-10 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2021-3698 is rated Moderate Risk (46.6/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.65%). 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-2021-3698

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 0.14% 0.65% +0.51%
2 2025-07-12 0.25% 0.14% -0.11%
3 2025-05-20 — 0.25% —

Full EPSS history (7 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-3698

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-2021-3698

OS Trackers for CVE-2021-3698

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2021-3698 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (cockpit), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 4, open 1. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2021-3698
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-3698
suse high CVE-2021-3698 severity important: SUSE including 13 source package names (cockpit, cockpit-264.1-1.el8, …), 35 product×package rows across 6 product lines (SUSE Liberty Linux 8, SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.1, … (6 product lines)): Known Not Affected 30, Fixed 5. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-3698/
ubuntu medium CVE-2021-3698 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (cockpit), 15 status rows across 15 suites (bionic, focal, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): ignored 6, not-affected 6, DNE 1, needed 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2021-3698

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-3698

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
cockpit-project cockpit < 260 cpe:2.3:a:cockpit-project:cockpit:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
redhat enterprise_linux 8.0 cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-3698

URL Tags
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1992149 Issue Tracking Third Party Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence