CVE-2021-4122

It was found that a specially crafted LUKS header could trick cryptsetup into disabling encryption during the recovery of the device. An attacker with physical access to the medium, such as a flash disk, could use this flaw to force a user into permanently disabling the encryption layer of that medium.

Published: 2022-08-24 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2021-4122 is rated Low Risk (22.8/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.05%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

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-2021-4122

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 2025-06-20 0.05% 0.05% +0.00%
2 2025-03-30 0.09% 0.05% -0.04%
3 2025-03-29 — 0.09% —

Full EPSS history (8 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-4122

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:P)
Hands-on access—USB, keyboard, opening the case—not something you do purely over the wire.
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:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful 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.
 0.7 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2021-4122

OS Trackers for CVE-2021-4122

vendor priority summary link
alpine medium CVE-2021-4122: 1 source package rows (cryptsetup); 13 state rows across 8 repos (3.12-main, 3.17-main, 3.18-main, 3.19-main, 3.20-main, 3.21-main, 3.22-main, edge-main); fixed 8, open 5. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2021-4122
debian not yet assigned CVE-2021-4122 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (cryptsetup), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2021-4122
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-4122
suse medium CVE-2021-4122 severity moderate: SUSE including 316 source package names (1.8.6.0.3.2.5:cryptsetup-2.3.7-150300.3.5.1, 1.8.6.0.3.2.5:libcryptsetup12-2.3.7-150300.3.5.1, …), 556 product×package rows across 105 product lines (Container bci/bci-init, Container ses/7.1/ceph/haproxy, … (105 product lines)): Fixed 203, Known Affected 178, Known Not Affected 175. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-4122/
ubuntu medium CVE-2021-4122 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (cryptsetup), 8 status rows across 8 suites (bionic, focal, hirsute, impish, jammy, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 4, not-affected 3, ignored 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2021-4122

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-4122

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
cryptsetup_project cryptsetup < 2.3.7 cpe:2.3:a:cryptsetup_project:cryptsetup:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cryptsetup_project cryptsetup >= 2.4.0, < 2.4.3 cpe:2.3:a:cryptsetup_project:cryptsetup:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-4122

cvelogic Threat Intelligence