Sssd
CVE-2021-3621
HIGH
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A05:2025 - Injection
ASVS 5.0
V1 - Encoding and Sanitization Command injection prevention
MITRE ATT&CK
1 technique across 1 tactic: Execution The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | CVSS score of 8.8 (HIGH). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, no privileges required, user interaction required. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote attacker could inject arbitrary commands into system command execution by sending crafted requests to the affected application. No authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
A flaw was found in SSSD, where the sssctl command was vulnerable to shell command injection via the logs-fetch and cache-expire subcommands. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity.
RemediationAI
A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Use parameterized APIs, avoid shell execution, validate input with strict allowlists.
Affects your stack
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Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified as Command Injection (CWE-77), which allows attackers to inject arbitrary commands into system command execution. A flaw was found in SSSD, where the sssctl command was vulnerable to shell command injection via the logs-fetch and cache-expire subcommands. This flaw allows an attacker to trick the root user into running a specially crafted sssctl command, such as via sudo, to gain root access. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to confidentiality, integrity, as well as system availability. Affected products include: Fedoraproject Sssd, Redhat Virtualization, Redhat Virtualization Host, Redhat Enterprise Linux, Redhat Enterprise Linux Eus.
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- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
A flaw was found in SSSD, where the sssctl command was vulnerable to shell command injection via the logs-fetch and cache-expire subcommands. This flaw allows an attacker to trick the root user into running a specially crafted sssctl command, such as via sudo, to gain root access. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to confidentiality, integrity, as well as system availability.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
OS command injection occurs when an application passes unsanitized user input directly into system shell commands.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
Access-control bypass in SSSD lets an already-authenticated user from a trusted identity domain reach hosts and services
The UNIX pipe which sudo uses to contact SSSD and read the available sudo rules from SSSD has too wide permissions, whic
Memory leak in the Privilege Attribute Certificate (PAC) responder plugin (sssd_pac_plugin.so) in System Security Servic
Access control bypass in SSSD when configured with non-default ordering that evaluates password-expiration warnings befo
Memory exhaustion in the SSSD (System Security Services Daemon) can be triggered by an unauthenticated local attacker wh
Denial of service in sssd passkey authentication handling allows any local user to crash the PAM responder by sending a
Local unprivileged users on hosts running the System Security Services Daemon (SSSD) can crash or destabilize the NSS re
A local denial of service in SSSD's Name Service Switch (NSS) responder lets an attacker who can reach the responder's U
Unprivileged local users can exhaust memory in the SSSD NSS responder by repeatedly requesting lookups for nonexistent e
Denial of service in SSSD's autofs responder allows a local attacker with an existing account on the host to crash the r
sssd versions from 1.13.0 to before 2.0.0 did not properly restrict access to the infopipe according to the "allowed_uid
Deleted or deprovisioned users can retain authorization on hosts running SSSD with the LDAP access provider when ldap_ac
GitHub PoC
Exploit-DB