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Emc Powerscale OnefsOperating system · Dell

CVE-2021-21599

MEDIUM · 6.7 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-08-16
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 9.2.1 or later.
See remediation →
69/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Zero-click Patch available

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 · unedited
Dell EMC PowerScale OneFS versions 8.2.x - 9.2.1.x contain an OS command injection vulnerability. This may allow a user with ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_SSH or ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_CONSOLE to escalate privileges and escape the compliance guarantees. This only impacts Smartlock WORM compliance mode clusters as a critical vulnerability and Dell recommends to update/upgrade at the earliest opportunity.

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 analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-78

User input reaches a shell or system command without being fully separated from the command itself, so an attacker can append their own instructions. Because these run with the application's privileges, it often means full control of the host. The lasting fix is to avoid the shell entirely — call APIs directly and pass arguments as data, never as concatenated strings.

General guidance for the os command injection 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
Emc Powerscale OnefsOperating system
Affected:>= 9.0.0.0, <= 9.2.1= 8.2.2

CVSS 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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
High
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 9.2.1
Vendor patch www.dell.com →
Recommended fix Moderate confidence

OneFS 9.3.0 or later (any stable release beyond 9.2.1)

  1. 1. Identify the current PowerScale OneFS version by running 'isi version' or checking the OneFS web UI dashboard.
  2. 2. Since the vulnerability affects versions 8.2.2 and 9.0.0.0 through 9.2.1 in Smartlock WORM compliance mode, determine if your cluster has Smartlock compliance mode enabled by running 'isi smb share list' and checking for WORM compliance configurations.
  3. 3. Plan an upgrade to OneFS version 9.3.0 or later (a version beyond the affected 9.2.1 range) following Dell EMC standard upgrade procedures.
  4. 4. Before upgrading, back up all critical data and cluster configuration.
  5. 5. Schedule the upgrade during a maintenance window as upgrades require cluster reboot.
  6. 6. Perform the upgrade following the official Dell EMC PowerScale OneFS upgrade guide, or contact Dell support for assisted upgrade.
  7. 7. After upgrade, verify the new version is running with 'isi version' and confirm Smartlock compliance mode still functions correctly.
Caveat Standard OneFS upgrade may require cluster downtime and brief unavailability; always review Dell release notes for specific version upgrade requirements

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can identify the exact fixed release, upgrade, and verify it in staging — typical engagement from $2,850. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-21599 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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