A flaw was found in RPM's signature check functionality when reading a package file. This flaw allows an attacker who can convince a victim to install a seemingly verifiable package, whose signature header was modified, to cause RPM database corruption and execute code. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data integrity, confidentiality, and system availability.
CVE-2021-20271
Score 7.0 from GitHub Security Advisory (severity: HIGH) published 2022-05-24. NVD baseline CVSS 7.0; sources differ by 0.0.
- High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 7.0
- EG Score
- 7.0(medium)
- EG Risk
- 36(Track)EG Risk 36/100SSVC: Track
EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).
How it’s computedSeverity70% × 45%Exploitation1% × 40%Automatability30% × 15%Action: Routine — remediate on your standard cadence. - EPSS
- 52.6%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
March 26, 2021
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
References (14)
- secalert@redhathttps://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1934125
- secalert@redhathttps://github.com/rpm-software-management/rpm/commit/d6a86b5e69e46cc283b1e06c92343319beb42e21
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/TMGXO3W6DHPO62GJ4VVF5DEUX5DRUR5K/
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/VHRPNBCRPDJHHQE3MBPSZK4H7X2IM7AC/
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/YILPBTPSBRYL4POBI3F4YUSVPSOQNJBY/
- secalert@redhathttps://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202107-43
- secalert@redhathttps://www.starwindsoftware.com/security/sw-20220805-0002/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1934125
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://github.com/rpm-software-management/rpm/commit/d6a86b5e69e46cc283b1e06c92343319beb42e21
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/TMGXO3W6DHPO62GJ4VVF5DEUX5DRUR5K/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/VHRPNBCRPDJHHQE3MBPSZK4H7X2IM7AC/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/YILPBTPSBRYL4POBI3F4YUSVPSOQNJBY/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202107-43
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://www.starwindsoftware.com/security/sw-20220805-0002/
Vendor Advisories for CVE-2021-20271(5)
These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.
- RHSA-2021:4975Red Hat Product SecurityMedium
Red Hat Security Advisory: rpm security update
- RHSA-2021:4785Red Hat Product SecurityMedium
Red Hat Security Advisory: rpm security update
- RHSA-2021:4771Red Hat Product SecurityMedium
Red Hat Security Advisory: rpm security update
- RHSA-2021:2791Red Hat Product SecurityMedium
Red Hat Security Advisory: rpm security update
- RHSA-2021:2574Red Hat Product SecurityMedium
Red Hat Security Advisory: rpm security update
Patch Availability(7)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fixed in / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| ubuntu | librpmio3 (4.12.0.1+dfsg1-3ubuntu0.1~esm1) @ xenial | 2026-05-26 | ubuntu |
| redhat | rpm-0:4.11.3-40.el7_7.1 | 2021-12-07 | redhat |
| redhat | rpm-0:4.11.3-48.el7_9 | 2021-11-23 | redhat |
| redhat | rpm-0:4.11.3-35.el7_6.2 | 2021-11-23 | redhat |
| redhat | rhmtc/openshift-velero-plugin-rhel8:v1.4.6-4 | 2021-07-21 | redhat |
| redhat | rpm-0:4.14.2-38.el8_2 | 2021-07-20 | redhat |
| redhat | rpm-0:4.14.3-14.el8_4 | 2021-06-29 | redhat |
Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.
Weakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Additional Vendor Advisories
(3)
Vendors that published advisories for this CVE beyond the curated set above. Broader coverage but minimal per-row detail — click through for the original advisory.
- Microsoft MSRCCVE-2021-202712021-04-01
A flaw was found in RPM's signature check functionality when reading a package file. This flaw allows an attacker who can convince a victim to install a seemingly verifiable package whose signature header was modified to cause RPM database corruption and execute code. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data integrity confidentiality and system availability.
- Red HatRHBA-2021:2854MODERATE2021-03-11
RHBA-2021:2854 — Moderate
- UbuntuUSN-5273-1LOW
RPM Package Manager vulnerabilities
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 11× in last 7d / 45× in last 30d)
Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.
- 2026-07-23 01:56 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 22:43 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 14:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-21 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-21 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-20 17:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-19 14:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-19 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-18 23:29 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-07-18 10:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-16 17:00 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-15 16:55 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-15 16:55 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-15 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 22:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 22:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-12 05:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-12 05:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-11 08:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-09 19:07 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-08 15:12 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-07 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 16:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 02:21 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 02:21 UTCEPSS rescore
Show 75 moreShow fewer
- 2026-07-05 02:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-05 02:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-04 06:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-04 06:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-02 16:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 15:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 06:18 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 14:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-27 03:06 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-27 03:06 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-24 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-24 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-23 21:31 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-23 21:31 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-22 14:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-22 14:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 01:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-19 19:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-19 19:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-18 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-18 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-17 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-15 17:46 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-14 23:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 10:43 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-12 23:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-12 23:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-11 13:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-10 22:16 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-10 22:16 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-10 13:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-08 14:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-08 14:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-07 15:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-07 15:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-06 13:46 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-06 13:46 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-06 13:46 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 22:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 22:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 06:09 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 06:09 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-01 13:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-01 13:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 22:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 22:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 00:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 00:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-29 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-28 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-28 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-27 13:39 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 19:07 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-05-26 19:07 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-05-26 19:07 UTCGHSA enrichment
- 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-24 16:49 UTCEPSS rescore
Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2021-20271?
When was CVE-2021-20271 disclosed?
Is CVE-2021-20271 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2021-20271?
How do I remediate CVE-2021-20271?
Dependency Blast Radius
Explore the affected products and dependency analysis for CVE-2021-20271
Is Your Infrastructure Affected by CVE-2021-20271?
EchelonGraph automatically scans your cloud infrastructure and maps CVE exposure using blast radius analysis.