CVE-2021-44886
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 · uneditedIn Zammad 5.0.2, agents can configure "out of office" periods and substitute persons. If the substitute persons didn't have the same permissions as the original agent, they could receive ticket notifications for tickets that they have no access to.
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 · high confidenceIn Zammad 5.0.2, the out-of-office feature forwards ticket notifications to designated substitutes without verifying they have permission to access those tickets. Substitutes receive sensitive ticket notifications for tickets they cannot actually view, causing an information disclosure via improper authorization.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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= 5.0.2CVSS 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
- Low
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify installed Zammad versionRun the command: zammad --version or check the About section in the Zammad web UI under Admin > System > Information. Alternatively, check the package version with your package manager (dpkg -l zammad or rpm -qi zammad).Affected if The installed version is exactly 5.0.2
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Verify out-of-office feature is in useNavigate to Admin > Users > select a user > Out-of-office tab. Check if any users have out-of-office schedules enabled with substitute users defined.Affected if Out-of-office is enabled with one or more substitutes assigned
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Examine substitute user permissionsFor each user with out-of-office enabled, review the assigned substitute users. Compare the substitute user roles and group permissions against the permissions of the primary user.Affected if Substitutes have fewer permissions than the primary user, or belong to different access groups
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Review notification delivery to substitutesTemporarily disable the out-of-office feature or monitor ticket creation/modification events. Check if substitutes receive email notifications for tickets outside their permission scope.Affected if Substitutes receive ticket notifications for tickets they cannot access in the Zammad web interface
A user is affected if running Zammad version 5.0.2 with out-of-office enabled and substitutes who lack permissions to view the tickets for which they receive notifications.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataApply the vendor patch for CVE-2021-44886. Until then, limit out-of-office substitutions to users with equivalent permission levels and monitor notification logs for unauthorized access patterns.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,088.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-44886 — 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-2021-44886 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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