An issue was discovered in urllib3 before 1.26.5. When provided with a URL containing many @ characters in the authority component, the authority regular expression exhibits catastrophic backtracking, causing a denial of service if a URL were passed as a parameter or redirected to via an HTTP redirect.
CVE-2021-33503
This high-severity CVE scores 7.5 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 0.9%, top 25% 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 severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 7.5
- EG Score
- 7.5(medium)
- EPSS
- 87.0%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
June 29, 2021
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
References (12)
- cve@mitrehttps://github.com/advisories/GHSA-q2q7-5pp4-w6pg
- cve@mitrehttps://github.com/urllib3/urllib3/commit/2d4a3fee6de2fa45eb82169361918f759269b4ec
- cve@mitrehttps://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/6SCV7ZNAHS3E6PBFLJGENCDRDRWRZZ6W/
- cve@mitrehttps://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/FMUGWEAUYGGHTPPXT6YBD53WYXQGVV73/
- cve@mitrehttps://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202107-36
- cve@mitrehttps://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuoct2021.html
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-q2q7-5pp4-w6pg
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://github.com/urllib3/urllib3/commit/2d4a3fee6de2fa45eb82169361918f759269b4ec
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/6SCV7ZNAHS3E6PBFLJGENCDRDRWRZZ6W/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/FMUGWEAUYGGHTPPXT6YBD53WYXQGVV73/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202107-36
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuoct2021.html
Vendor Advisories for CVE-2021-33503(5)
These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.
- RHSA-2021:4702Red Hat Product SecurityMedium
Red Hat Security Advisory: Satellite 6.10 Release
- RHSA-2021:4160Red Hat Product SecurityMedium
Red Hat Security Advisory: python39:3.9 and python39-devel:3.9 security update
- RHSA-2021:4162Red Hat Product SecurityMedium
Red Hat Security Advisory: python38:3.8 and python38-devel:3.8 security update
- RHSA-2021:3254Red Hat Product SecurityMedium
Red Hat Security Advisory: rh-python38 security, bug fix, and enhancement update
- GHSA-q2q7-5pp4-w6pgGitHub Security AdvisoriesHigh
Catastrophic backtracking in URL authority parser when passed URL containing many @ characters
Patch Availability(6)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fixed in / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| ubuntu | python3-urllib3 (1.25.8-2ubuntu0.2) @ focal | 2026-05-26 | ubuntu |
| redhat | python-urllib3-0:1.26.5-1.el7pc | 2021-11-16 | redhat |
| redhat | python39-devel:3.9-8050020210811100211.d428a79b | 2021-11-09 | redhat |
| redhat | python38-devel:3.8-8050020210811101222.e3d35cca | 2021-11-09 | redhat |
| redhat | python-urllib3-0:1.26.5-1.el8pc | 2021-09-08 | redhat |
| redhat | rh-python38-python-urllib3-0:1.25.7-7.el7 | 2021-08-24 | 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.
Affected Packages
(1 across 1 ecosystem)
PyPI(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| urllib3 | 1.25.10 ... 0.3 (30 versions) | 1.26.5 | — |
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-2021-335032021-07-03
An issue was discovered in urllib3 before 1.26.5. When provided with a URL containing many @ characters in the authority component the authority regular expression exhibits catastrophic backtracking causing a denial of service if a URL were passed as a parameter or redirected to via an HTTP redirect.
- Red HatRHSA-2021:3473MODERATE2021-06-01
RHSA-2021:3473 — Moderate
- UbuntuUSN-5812-1LOW
urllib3 vulnerability
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 12× in last 7d / 42× 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.
- 2026-07-21 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-21 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-20 17:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-19 14:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-19 14:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-19 02:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-18 17:59 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-07-18 10:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-18 10:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-16 17:00 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-15 16:55 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-15 01:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 22:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-12 05:44 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-11 08:25 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 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
- 2026-07-05 02:28 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-04 06:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-04 06:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 15:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 00:48 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-29 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 14:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:54 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-27 03:06 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-24 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-21 14:55 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-19 19:24 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-18 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-17 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-16 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-15 17:46 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-14 23:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 02:44 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 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
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- 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 06:09 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-04 13:10 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
- 2026-05-29 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
- 2026-05-27 13:39 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-27 13:39 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 14:22 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-05-26 14:22 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
Related CVEs(same vendor + same CWE)
Same vendor
10 shownmsrc · redhat
Same CWE
10 shownCWE-400
Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2021-33503?
When was CVE-2021-33503 disclosed?
Is CVE-2021-33503 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2021-33503?
How do I remediate CVE-2021-33503?
Dependency Blast Radius
See which npm, PyPI, Go, and Maven packages are affected by CVE-2021-33503
Is Your Infrastructure Affected by CVE-2021-33503?
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