Microsoft Exchange Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
CVE-2021-26855
“—” beside the score: it is equal to NVD's CVSS score.
Score elevated to 9.8 because this CVE is listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03), indicating real-world exploitation has been confirmed by US federal agencies. NVD baseline CVSS 9.8 retained for reference. Confidence: HIGH.
Also known asEUVD-2021-13639 (ENISA EUVD) · GHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 (GitHub Security Advisories)Source: ENISA EUVD
- Actively exploited in the wild (CISA-KEV) — the reason this is sooner than the SSVC decision on this page at low mission impact
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 9.8
- EG Score
- 9.8CRITICALhigh confidence
- EG Risk
- 99EG Risk 99/100
EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score. It fuses impact severity (EG Severity, the CVSS base score, never the KEV-floored or EPSS-lifted EG Score) with real-world exploitation and automatability, under weights EchelonGraph set by hand, so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner.
How it’s computed (value × EchelonGraph’s weight)Severity98% × 45%Impact severity (EG Severity): CVSS 9.8 of 10. Never the KEV-floored or EPSS-lifted EG Score.Exploitation100% × 40%Fixed at 100% for a CISA KEV listing: EchelonGraph's rule.Automatability100% × 15%CISA's SSVC Automatable value: yes (Vulnrichment).SSVC (CISA's decision table, applied by EchelonGraph): Attend at low mission impact; Act at medium or high.Exploitation active (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable yes (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). All three are CISA's SSVC values (Vulnrichment). EchelonGraph applied CISA's decision table to them; CISA publishes SSVC inputs and the table, not a decision for each CVE.Action: A fix is available. Apply it sooner than your standard update timelines at low mission impact and as soon as possible at medium or high. - EPSS PROB
- >99.9%
- EPSS %ILE
- 99th
- KEV
- ⚠ Exploited
What the EG score is made of (scorer v4.0: the three questions the 0–10 score mixes, published apart · methodology)
The EG score (9.8): severity, escalated by confirmed exploitation. This CVE's 9.8 is its impact severity (EG Severity), not escalated.
- EG Severity
- 9.8 CRITICALCVSS-B, impact only: no KEV listing, EPSS or EG-KEV tier raises it.GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
- EG Likelihood
- >99.9% within 30 daysSource: FIRST EPSS (model v2026.06.15, score date 2026-11-02). FIRST's exploitation probability, not an EchelonGraph model.
- Confirmed exploitation
- CISA KEV and EG-KEV Tier 1 (exploited in the wild)Reported apart from the likelihood: an observed fact, not a probability.
- EG Priority
- SSVC Act at medium mission impactAttend at low mission impact; Act at medium or high.CISA BOD 26-04: 3 days & forensic triage if the affected system is publicly exposed; 3 days & forensic triage if it is not.Each input and its source, and whom BOD 26-04 binds: the SSVC and BOD 26-04 blocks below.
SSVC (CISA's decision table, applied by EchelonGraph)Attend at low mission impact; Act at medium or high.
A fix is available. Apply it sooner than your standard update timelines at low mission impact and as soon as possible at medium or high.
Exploitation active (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable yes (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). All three are CISA's SSVC values (Vulnrichment). EchelonGraph applied CISA's decision table to them; CISA publishes SSVC inputs and the table, not a decision for each CVE. Mission impact is CISA's Mission & Well-being decision point, and only you can judge it. CISA's table makes it high when Mission Prevalence is Essential — the vulnerable component "directly provides capabilities that constitute at least one MEF for at least one entity" (MEF: mission essential function) — or when Public Well-Being Impact is Irreversible: "multiple fatalities are likely", the cyber-physical system "is likely lost or destroyed", "extreme or serious externalities" are imposed on other parties, or social systems such as elections or the financial grid "are destabilized and potentially collapse". CISA's decision table
BOD 26-04 (CISA's remediation timeline, Table 1)3 days & forensic triage if the affected system is publicly exposed; 3 days & forensic triage if it is not.
The score's inputs: In CISA KEV yes (CISA's KEV catalog) · Automatable yes (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). Whether your system is publicly exposed is yours to answer. BOD 26-04 binds US Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies; for anyone else it is CISA's published timeline, a reference rather than an obligation. The directive · how EchelonGraph applies it
CISA required action“Apply updates per vendor instructions.”
Quoted verbatim from CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. CISA directs it at US federal civilian executive branch agencies under Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 26-04, which replaced BOD 22-01 on 10 June 2026; it is not EchelonGraph's advice. CISA's notes: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/directives/ed-21-02-mitigate-microsoft-exchange-premises-product-vulnerabilities · https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-26855
Published
March 3, 2021
Last Modified
August 19, 2026
Advisory Details (7)
Auto-updated Oct 29, 2026Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog | CISA
Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog | CISA. Listed in CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2021-26855Security Update Guide - Microsoft Security Response Center
https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2021-26855Packet Storm
http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/162736/Microsoft-Exchange-ProxyLogon-Collector.htmlPacket Storm
http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/162610/Microsoft-Exchange-2019-Unauthenticated-Email-Download.htmlPacket Storm
http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/161938/Microsoft-Exchange-ProxyLogon-Remote-Code-Execution.htmlPacket Storm
http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/161846/Microsoft-Exchange-2019-SSRF-Arbitrary-File-Write.htmlSecurity Update Guide - Microsoft Security Response Center
https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2021-26855Vendor Advisories for CVE-2021-26855(2)
These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.
Weakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 0× in last 7d / 0× in last 30d)
Each row is a time one of our pipelines fetched, updated or re-scored this CVE. 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. An arrow marks a change the record states ("CVSS v3 → 9.1"); EPSS and GHSA rows show the values recorded at that time, not what changed (EPSS values are rounded; hover one for the exact figures). Most recent first.
- 2026-11-03 11:55 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-11-03 11:55 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-11-03 11:55 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-11-02 13:37 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-11-02 13:37 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-11-02 13:37 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-11-01 15:18 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-11-01 15:17 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-31 16:58 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-31 16:58 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-31 16:58 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-30 18:40 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-30 18:40 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-30 18:40 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-29 20:21 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-29 20:21 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-29 20:21 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-28 22:03 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-28 22:03 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-27 23:44 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-27 23:44 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-27 16:28 UTCEPSS rescoreEPSS >99.9% · 99th percentile
- 2026-10-27 01:25 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-27 01:25 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-26 03:04 UTCVendor advisory
Show 75 moreShow fewer
- 2026-10-26 03:04 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-25 18:31 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-25 04:46 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-25 04:46 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-25 04:46 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-24 06:28 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-24 06:28 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-23 08:09 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-23 08:09 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-23 08:09 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-22 09:48 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-22 09:47 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-21 11:27 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-21 11:27 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-21 11:27 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-20 13:09 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-20 13:08 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-19 14:46 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-19 14:46 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-19 14:45 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-18 16:26 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-18 16:26 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-18 09:06 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-17 19:13 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-17 19:13 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-17 19:13 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-16 20:55 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-16 20:54 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-15 22:34 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-15 22:34 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-15 00:14 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-15 00:14 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-14 01:55 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-14 01:55 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-13 03:35 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-13 03:35 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-12 19:20 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-12 05:16 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-12 05:15 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-12 01:23 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-12 01:23 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-11 21:34 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-11 21:33 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-11 21:33 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-11 17:45 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-11 17:45 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-11 17:44 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-11 13:52 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-10-11 13:52 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-11 13:51 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-11 10:02 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-11 10:02 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-11 06:13 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-11 06:13 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-11 02:24 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-11 02:24 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-10 22:32 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-10 22:32 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-10 18:42 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-10 14:53 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-10 11:04 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-10 11:04 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-10 07:15 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-10 07:15 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-10 03:25 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-10 03:25 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-09 23:35 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-09 23:34 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-09 19:45 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-09 19:45 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-09 15:55 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-09 15:55 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-09 12:06 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-10-09 12:06 UTCGHSA enrichmentGHSA-6784-2mh5-cq56 · GitHub severity CRITICAL · GitHub CVSS 9.8
- 2026-10-09 08:15 UTCVendor advisory
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Frequently asked(6)
What is CVE-2021-26855?
When was CVE-2021-26855 made public?
Is CVE-2021-26855 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2021-26855?
Which products are affected by CVE-2021-26855?
How do I remediate CVE-2021-26855?
Dependency Blast Radius
Explore the affected products and dependency analysis for CVE-2021-26855
Is Your Infrastructure Affected by CVE-2021-26855?
EchelonGraph automatically scans your cloud infrastructure and maps CVE exposure using blast radius analysis.