Movable Type 7 r.5002 and earlier (Movable Type 7 Series), Movable Type 6.8.2 and earlier (Movable Type 6 Series), Movable Type Advanced 7 r.5002 and earlier (Movable Type Advanced 7 Series), Movable Type Advanced 6.8.2 and earlier (Movable Type Advanced 6 Series), Movable Type Premium 1.46 and earlier, and Movable Type Premium Advanced 1.46 and earlier allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary OS commands via unspecified vectors. Note that all versions of Movable Type 4.0 or later including unsupported (End-of-Life, EOL) versions are also affected by this vulnerability.
CVE-2021-20837
This critical-severity CVE scores 9.8 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 88.1%, top 0% of all CVEs by exploit prediction. GitHub Security Advisory data not yet ingested — confidence will rise once GHSA publishes (typical lag: hours to days for open-source ecosystem CVEs; never for infrastructure-only CVEs).
- High exploitation likelihood — EPSS 88%
No vendor fix yet — apply a workaround or compensating control (WAF / firewall / segmentation) and watch for a patch.
- CVSS v3
- 9.8
- EG Score
- 9.8(medium)
- EG Risk
- 84(Track*)EG Risk 84/100SSVC: 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 computedSeverity98% × 45%Exploitation88% × 40%Automatability30% × 15%Action: Watch closely — could escalate to Attend. - EPSS
- 99.8%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
October 26, 2021
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
Advisory Details (4)
Auto-updated Jun 19, 2026MovableType.org – News:Movable Type 7 r.5003 (v7.8.2), v6.8.3: Security update
https://movabletype.org/news/2021/10/mt-782-683-released.htmlJVN#41119755: Movable Type XMLRPC API vulnerable to OS command injection
https://jvn.jp/en/jp/JVN41119755/index.htmlWeakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 5× in last 7d / 13× 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.
- 2026-07-24 14:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-23 01:56 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 22:43 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 14:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-19 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-15 16:55 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-07 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-02 16:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-23 21:31 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-23 21:31 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-17 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-15 17:46 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
- 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 08:28 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-05-26 08:28 UTCGHSA enrichment
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-24 16:49 UTCEPSS rescore
Publicly available exploits
(4 references)Working exploit code is in the public domain (2 GitHub PoCs) (1 Exploit-DB entry). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.
- GitHub PoCorangmuda/CVE-2021-20837First seen Oct 30, 2021
XMLRPC - RCE in MovableTypePoC
Open source ↗ - Exploit-DBEDB-50464✓ verifiedFirst seen Oct 29, 2021
Movable Type 7 r.5002 - XMLRPC API OS Command Injection (Metasploit)
Open source ↗ - GitHub PoCghost-nemesis/cve-2021-20837-pocFirst seen Oct 25, 2021
PoC for the CVE-2021-20837 : RCE in MovableType
Open source ↗ - Nucleihttp/cves/2021/CVE-2021-20837.yamlFirst seen Jan 1, 2021
MovableType - Remote Command Injection
Open source ↗
Related CVEs(same CWE)
Same CWE
10 shownCWE-78
Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2021-20837?
When was CVE-2021-20837 disclosed?
Is CVE-2021-20837 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2021-20837?
How do I remediate CVE-2021-20837?
Dependency Blast Radius
Explore the affected products and dependency analysis for CVE-2021-20837
Is Your Infrastructure Affected by CVE-2021-20837?
EchelonGraph automatically scans your cloud infrastructure and maps CVE exposure using blast radius analysis.