There's a flaw in libxml2's xmllint in versions before 2.9.11. An attacker who is able to submit a crafted file to be processed by xmllint could trigger a use-after-free. The greatest impact of this flaw is to confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
CVE-2021-3516
This high-severity CVE scores 7.8 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 2.0%, top 21% 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
- 7.8
- EG Score
- 7.8(medium)
- EG Risk
- 40(Track)EG Risk 40/100SSVC: 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 computedSeverity78% × 45%Exploitation2% × 40%Automatability30% × 15%Action: Routine — remediate on your standard cadence. - EPSS PROB
- 2%
- EPSS %ILE
- 79%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
June 1, 2021
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
References (18)
- secalert@redhathttps://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1954225
- secalert@redhathttps://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2/-/commit/1358d157d0bd83be1dfe356a69213df9fac0b539
- secalert@redhathttps://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2/-/issues/230
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/05/msg00008.html
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/BZOMV5J4PMZAORVT64BKLV6YIZAFDGX6/
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/QVM4UJ3376I6ZVOYMHBNX4GY3NIV52WV/
- secalert@redhathttps://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202107-05
- secalert@redhathttps://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20210716-0005/
- secalert@redhathttps://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujan2022.html
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1954225
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2/-/commit/1358d157d0bd83be1dfe356a69213df9fac0b539
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2/-/issues/230
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/05/msg00008.html
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/BZOMV5J4PMZAORVT64BKLV6YIZAFDGX6/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/QVM4UJ3376I6ZVOYMHBNX4GY3NIV52WV/
Vendor Advisories for CVE-2021-3516(4)
These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.
- RHSA-2022:1389Red Hat Product SecurityHigh
Red Hat Security Advisory: Red Hat JBoss Core Services Apache HTTP Server 2.4.37 SP11 security update
- RHSA-2022:1390Red Hat Product SecurityHigh
Red Hat Security Advisory: Red Hat JBoss Core Services Apache HTTP Server 2.4.37 SP11 security update
- RHBA-2021:2854Red Hat Product SecurityHigh
Red Hat Bug Fix Advisory: Migration Toolkit for Containers (MTC) 1.4.6 release advisory
- RHSA-2021:2569Red Hat Product SecurityMedium
Red Hat Security Advisory: libxml2 security update
Patch Availability(4)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fixed in / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| redhat | jbcs-httpd24-openssl-pkcs11-0:0.4.10-26.jbcs.el7 | 2022-04-20 | redhat |
| redhat | libxml2 | 2022-04-20 | redhat |
| redhat | rhmtc/openshift-velero-plugin-rhel8:v1.4.6-4 | 2021-07-21 | redhat |
| redhat | libxml2-0:2.9.7-9.el8_4.2 | 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.
Affected Packages
(5 across 5 ecosystems)
Debian:11(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.10+dfsg-6.6 | — |
Debian:12(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.10+dfsg-6.6 | — |
Debian:13(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.10+dfsg-6.6 | — |
Debian:14(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.10+dfsg-6.6 | — |
Debian:9(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | 2.9.4+dfsg1-2.2, 2.9.4+dfsg1-2.2+deb9u1, 2.9.4+dfsg1-2.2+deb9u2, 2.9.4+dfsg1-2.2+deb9u3 | 2.9.4+dfsg1-2.2+deb9u4 | — |
Weakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 9× in last 7d / 31× 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.
Showing the most recent 100 of 136 total refreshes for this CVE.
- 2026-08-20 22:52 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-20 22:52 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-20 02:34 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-08-19 17:01 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-18 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-08-16 14:53 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-08-08 16:33 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-08-06 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-05 19:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-04 21:27 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-08-04 10:34 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-08-02 02:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-01 04:13 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-30 16:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-30 01:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-28 15:33 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-26 14:52 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-26 14:52 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-25 14:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-24 14:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-23 14:16 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-23 02:02 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 22:49 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 14:06 UTCEPSS rescore
- 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 02:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-18 19:29 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-07-18 10:02 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-16 17:00 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-12 05:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 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 16:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 02:21 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-05 02:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-05 02:28 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-04 06:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-02 16:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 15:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 02:18 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-29 14:04 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 14:55 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 01:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 01:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-19 19:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-19 19:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-18 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-15 17:46 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 04:43 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-12 23:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-11 13:58 UTCEPSS rescore
Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2021-3516?
When was CVE-2021-3516 disclosed?
Is CVE-2021-3516 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2021-3516?
How do I remediate CVE-2021-3516?
Dependency Blast Radius
See which npm, PyPI, Go, and Maven packages are affected by CVE-2021-3516
Is Your Infrastructure Affected by CVE-2021-3516?
EchelonGraph automatically scans your cloud infrastructure and maps CVE exposure using blast radius analysis.