CVE-2021-45083

An issue was discovered in Cobbler before 3.3.1. Files in /etc/cobbler are world readable. Two of those files contain some sensitive information that can be exposed to a local user who has non-privileged access to the server. The users.digest file contains the sha2-512 digest of users in a Cobbler local installation. In the case of an easy-to-guess password, it's trivial to obtain the plaintext string. The settings.yaml file contains secrets such as the hashed default password.

Published: 2022-02-20 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2021-45083 is rated Low Risk (31/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.03%). Mandatory action: 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-2021-45083

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 0.06% 0.03% -0.03%
2 2025-11-18 0.03% 0.06% +0.03%
3 2025-03-30 0.03%

Full EPSS history (7 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-45083

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.1 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
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:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
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: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.
1.8 5.2 [email protected]
3.6 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
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:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
3.9 4.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2021-45083

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2021-45083

GHSA-5946-mpw5-pqxx · Severity: high · Ecosystem: pip — Incorrect Default Permissions in Cobbler

OS Trackers for CVE-2021-45083

vendor priority summary link
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-45083
suse high https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-45083/
ubuntu medium CVE-2021-45083 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (cobbler), 3 status rows across 3 suites (trusty, upstream, xenial): released 2, ignored 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2021-45083

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-45083

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
cobbler_project cobbler < 3.3.1 cpe:2.3:a:cobbler_project:cobbler:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 34 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:34:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 35 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:35:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 36 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:36:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-45083

cvelogic Threat Intelligence