Certificate SystemApplication · Redhat
CVE-2021-20179
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedA flaw was found in pki-core. An attacker who has successfully compromised a key could use this flaw to renew the corresponding certificate over and over again, as long as it is not explicitly revoked. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisAn authorization check exists but is flawed, so it passes when it should fail. Attackers probe roles and object references to find the gap. Remediation means centralising and correctly implementing the access-control logic, then testing it against every role.
General guidance for the incorrect authorization class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
Certificate SystemApplication
= 10.0
Enterprise LinuxOperating system
= 7.0= 8.0
FedoraOperating system
= 32= 33= 34< 10.5.0>= 10.5.1, < 10.8.0>= 10.8.1, < 10.9.0>= 10.9.1, < 10.10.0>= 10.10.1, < 10.11.0CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor data10.5.010.8.010.9.0
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-20179 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-20179 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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