CVE-2021-38562

Best Practical Request Tracker (RT) 4.2 before 4.2.17, 4.4 before 4.4.5, and 5.0 before 5.0.2 allows sensitive information disclosure via a timing attack against lib/RT/REST2/Middleware/Auth.pm.

Published: 2021-10-18 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2021-38562 is rated Moderate Risk (57.6/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.71%). EPSS rose +1.60% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. 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-2021-38562

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 0.10% 1.71% +1.60%
2 2025-11-21 0.46% 0.10% -0.35%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.46% —

Full EPSS history (16 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-38562

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-2021-38562

OS Trackers for CVE-2021-38562

vendor priority summary link
alpine high CVE-2021-38562: 1 source package rows (rt4); 4 state rows across 4 repos (3.20-community, 3.21-community, 3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 4, open 0. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2021-38562
debian not yet assigned CVE-2021-38562 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 2 source packages (request-tracker4, request-tracker5), 6 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 6. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2021-38562
ubuntu low CVE-2021-38562 low priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (request-tracker4, request-tracker5), 30 status rows across 15 suites (bionic, focal, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 11, ignored 9, DNE 5, not-affected 4, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2021-38562

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-38562

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
bestpractical request_tracker >= 4.2.0, < 4.2.17 cpe:2.3:a:bestpractical:request_tracker:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
bestpractical request_tracker >= 4.4.0, < 4.4.5 cpe:2.3:a:bestpractical:request_tracker:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
bestpractical request_tracker >= 5.0.0, < 5.0.2 cpe:2.3:a:bestpractical:request_tracker:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 35 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:35:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 9.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-38562

cvelogic Threat Intelligence