A security issue in nginx resolver was identified, which might allow an attacker who is able to forge UDP packets from the DNS server to cause 1-byte memory overwrite, resulting in worker process crash or potential other impact.
CVE-2021-23017
Score 9.4 from GitHub Security Advisory (severity: CRITICAL) published 2022-05-24. NVD baseline CVSS 7.7; sources differ by 1.7.
- 134 internet-exposed hosts are running an affected version right now
- High exploitation likelihood — EPSS 53%
A fix is available — apply it.
134 internet-exposed hosts are running an affected version of CVE-2021-23017 right now.
EchelonGraph is the only CVE feed that fuses live vulnerability intelligence with its own live internet-exposure radar — so you see not just that a CVE is exploited, but how much of the internet is exposed to it right now.
- CVSS v3
- 7.7
- EG Score
- 9.4(medium)
- EPSS
- 98.9%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
June 1, 2021
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
References (28)
- f5sirt@f5http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx-announce/2021/000300.html
- f5sirt@f5http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/167720/Nginx-1.20.0-Denial-Of-Service.html
- f5sirt@f5https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r37e6b2165f7c910d8e15fd54f4697857619ad2625f56583802004009%40%3Cnotifications.apisix.apache.org%3E
- f5sirt@f5https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r4d4966221ca399ce948ef34884652265729d7d9ef8179c78d7f17e7f%40%3Cnotifications.apisix.apache.org%3E
- f5sirt@f5https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r6fc5c57b38e93e36213e9a18c8a4e5dbd5ced1c7e57f08a1735975ba%40%3Cnotifications.apisix.apache.org%3E
- f5sirt@f5https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/rf232eecd47fdc44520192810560303073cefd684b321f85e311bad31%40%3Cnotifications.apisix.apache.org%3E
- f5sirt@f5https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/rf318aeeb4d7a3a312734780b47de83cefb7e6995da0b2cae5c28675c%40%3Cnotifications.apisix.apache.org%3E
- f5sirt@f5https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/7SFVYHC7OXTEO4SMBWXDVK6E5IMEYMEE/
- f5sirt@f5https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/GNKOP2JR5L7KCIZTJRZDCUPJTUONMC5I/
- f5sirt@f5https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20210708-0006/
- f5sirt@f5https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K12331123%2C
- f5sirt@f5https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuapr2022.html
- f5sirt@f5https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujan2022.html
- f5sirt@f5https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuoct2021.html
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx-announce/2021/000300.html
Vendor Advisories for CVE-2021-23017(1)
These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.
Patch Availability(10)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fixed in / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| redhat | nginx:1.20-8050020211221125012.c5368500 | 2022-01-31 | redhat |
| redhat | rhacm2/management-ingress-rhel7:v2.3.3-3 | 2021-10-20 | redhat |
| redhat | 3scale-amp2/zync-rhel8:1.14.0-3 | 2021-10-14 | redhat |
| redhat | rhacm2/acm-must-gather-rhel8:v2.1.11-2 | 2021-09-23 | redhat |
| redhat | ansible-tower-38/ansible-tower-rhel7:3.8.4-1 | 2021-09-08 | redhat |
| redhat | python-pulpcore-0:3.7.6-1.el8pc | 2021-07-29 | redhat |
| redhat | nginx:1.16-8020020210526102648.4cda2c84 | 2021-06-08 | redhat |
| redhat | nginx:1.18-8040020210526100943.522a0ee4 | 2021-06-07 | redhat |
| redhat | rh-nginx116-nginx-1:1.16.1-6.el7 | 2021-06-07 | redhat |
| redhat | rh-nginx118-nginx-1:1.18.0-3.el7 | 2021-06-07 | 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
(10)
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-2021-230172021-06-11
A security issue in nginx resolver was identified which might allow an attacker who is able to forge UDP packets from the DNS server to cause 1-byte memory overwrite resulting in worker process crash or potential other impact.
- Red HatRHBA-2021:2955IMPORTANT2021-05-25
RHBA-2021:2955 — Important
- Red HatRHBA-2021:3472IMPORTANT2021-05-25
RHBA-2021:3472 — Important
- Red HatRHSA-2021:2258IMPORTANT2021-05-25
RHSA-2021:2258 — Important
- Red HatRHSA-2021:2259IMPORTANT2021-05-25
RHSA-2021:2259 — Important
- Red HatRHSA-2021:2278IMPORTANT2021-05-25
RHSA-2021:2278 — Important
- Red HatRHSA-2021:2290IMPORTANT2021-05-25
RHSA-2021:2290 — Important
- Red HatRHSA-2021:3653IMPORTANT2021-05-25
RHSA-2021:3653 — Important
- Red HatRHSA-2021:3925IMPORTANT2021-05-25
RHSA-2021:3925 — Important
- Red HatRHSA-2022:0323IMPORTANT2021-05-25
RHSA-2022:0323 — Important
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 5× in last 7d / 34× 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.
- 2026-07-11 08:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-09 19:07 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 16:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 02:21 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 02:21 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 02:18 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
- 2026-06-21 01:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
Show 37 moreShow fewer
- 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
- 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 04:43 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
- 2026-06-05 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 00:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 00:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-29 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 15:49 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-05-26 15:49 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-05-26 15:49 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
Publicly available exploits
(2 references)Working exploit code is in the public domain (1 GitHub PoC) (1 Exploit-DB entry). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.
- Exploit-DBEDB-50973First seen Jul 11, 2022
Nginx 1.20.0 - Denial of Service (DOS)
Open source ↗ - GitHub PoCM507/CVE-2021-23017-PoCFirst seen Jun 30, 2022
PoC for Nginx 0.6.18 - 1.20.0 Memory Overwrite Vulnerability CVE-2021-23017
Open source ↗
Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2021-23017?
When was CVE-2021-23017 disclosed?
Is CVE-2021-23017 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2021-23017?
How do I remediate CVE-2021-23017?
Dependency Blast Radius
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