Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2021-42392

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-01-10
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 2.0.204 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
High EPSS Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges 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
The org.h2.util.JdbcUtils.getConnection method of the H2 database takes as parameters the class name of the driver and URL of the database. An attacker may pass a JNDI driver name and a URL leading to a LDAP or RMI servers, causing remote code execution. This can be exploited through various attack vectors, most notably through the H2 Console which leads to unauthenticated remote code execution.

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-502

The application rebuilds objects from attacker-supplied serialized data, and the act of rebuilding can trigger dangerous code paths. In many runtimes this leads straight to remote code execution. The durable fix is to avoid deserializing untrusted input — or to use a strict, type-limited format with integrity checks.

General guidance for the deserialization of untrusted data 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
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 9.0= 10.0= 11.0
H2Application
Affected:>= 1.1.000, <= 2.0.204
Communications Cloud Native Core PolicyApplication
Affected:= 1.15.0

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

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/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 2.0.204
Vendor patch www.oracle.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

H2 version 2.0.205 or later (latest stable release recommended)

  1. Identify all deployments and applications using H2 database versions 1.1.000 through 2.0.204
  2. Locate the H2 console or any application code that invokes org.h2.util.JdbcUtils.getConnection method
  3. Upgrade H2 database to version 2.0.205 or later which contains the fix for CVE-2021-42392
  4. If upgrading is not immediately possible, disable or restrict access to the H2 Console
  5. If H2 Console must remain enabled, implement network segmentation to limit exposure
  6. Audit application code for any untrusted input passed to JdbcUtils.getConnection and implement input validation
Caveat Review release notes for version 2.x as there may be breaking changes from 1.x versions; test thoroughly before deploying to production

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 $3,550. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-42392 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-42392 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data