There's a flaw in libxml2 in versions before 2.9.11. An attacker who is able to submit a crafted file to be processed by an application linked with libxml2 could trigger a use-after-free. The greatest impact from this flaw is to confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
CVE-2021-3518
This high-severity CVE scores 8.8 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 3.7%, top 12% 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
- 8.8
- EG Score
- 8.8(medium)
- EG Risk
- 46(Track)EG Risk 46/100SSVC: 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 computedSeverity88% × 45%Exploitation4% × 40%Automatability30% × 15%Action: Routine — remediate on your standard cadence. - EPSS PROB
- 4%
- EPSS %ILE
- 89%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
May 18, 2021
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
Advisory Details (10)
Auto-updated Aug 25, 2026[SECURITY] Fedora 34 Update: libxml2-2.9.10-12.fc34 - package-announce - Fedora mailing-lists
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/QVM4UJ3376I6ZVOYMHBNX4GY3NIV52WV/[SECURITY] Fedora 33 Update: libxml2-2.9.12-4.fc33 - package-announce - Fedora mailing-lists
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/BZOMV5J4PMZAORVT64BKLV6YIZAFDGX6/[SECURITY] [DLA 2653-1] libxml2 security update
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/05/msg00008.html1954242 – (CVE-2021-3518) CVE-2021-3518 libxml2: Use-after-free in xmlXIncludeDoProcess() in xinclude.c
Affected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7. To learn more about Red Hat Enterprise Linux support life cycles, please see
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1954242Full Disclosure: APPLE-SA-2021-07-21-6 tvOS 14.7
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Jul/59Full Disclosure: APPLE-SA-2021-07-21-5 watchOS 7.6
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Jul/58Full Disclosure: APPLE-SA-2021-07-21-2 macOS Big Sur 11.5
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Jul/55Full Disclosure: APPLE-SA-2021-07-21-1 iOS 14.7 and iPadOS 14.7
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2021/Jul/54Vendor Advisories for CVE-2021-3518(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(5)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fixed in / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| ubuntu | python-libxml2 (2.9.1+dfsg1-3ubuntu4.13+esm2) @ trusty | 2026-05-26 | ubuntu |
| redhat | libxml2 | 2022-04-20 | redhat |
| redhat | jbcs-httpd24-openssl-pkcs11-0:0.4.10-26.jbcs.el7 | 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
(21 across 21 ecosystems)
Alpine:v3.10(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.9-r5 | — |
Alpine:v3.11(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.10-r5 | — |
Alpine:v3.12(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.10-r6 | — |
Alpine:v3.13(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.10-r7 | — |
Alpine:v3.14(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.11-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.15(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.11-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.16(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.11-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.17(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.11-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.18(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.11-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.19(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.11-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.20(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.11-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.21(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.11-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.22(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.11-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.23(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.11-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.24(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| libxml2 | — | 2.9.11-r0 | — |
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 | — |
RubyGems(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nokogiri | 1.0.0 ... 1.9.1 (128 versions) | 1.11.4 | — |
Weakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Additional Vendor Advisories
(2)
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-2021-35182021-05-26
There's a flaw in libxml2 in versions before 2.9.11. An attacker who is able to submit a crafted file to be processed by an application linked with libxml2 could trigger a use-after-free. The greatest impact from this flaw is to confidentiality integrity and availability.
- UbuntuUSN-4991-1MEDIUM
libxml2 vulnerabilities
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 6× in last 7d / 30× 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 166 total refreshes for this CVE.
- 2026-09-18 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-17 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-17 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-16 14:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-15 03:06 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-12 14:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-11 14:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-11 09:33 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-08 21:56 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-07 15:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-06 17:01 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-09-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-05 15:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-04 13:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-04 05:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-02 14:09 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-01 13:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-01 03:33 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-30 19:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-30 19:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-30 01:19 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-28 21:37 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-27 14:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-26 14:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-25 13:46 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-08-24 14:13 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-23 00:16 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-21 23:46 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-20 22:52 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-20 22:52 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-20 02:45 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-08-19 17:01 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-18 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-17 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-16 14:53 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-16 02:11 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-15 01:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-13 21:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-12 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-11 13:38 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-09 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-08 16:33 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-07 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-06 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-05 19:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-04 21:57 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-08-04 10:34 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-03 10:33 UTCEPSS rescore
- 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
- 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 20:29 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-07-18 10:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-18 10:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-16 17:00 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-16 17:00 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-15 16:55 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-15 16:55 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-15 01:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 22:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 22:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 06:11 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 06:11 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-12 05:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-11 08:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-11 08:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 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
- 2026-07-06 02:21 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-05 02:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-05 02:28 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 15:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 03:18 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
Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2021-3518?
When was CVE-2021-3518 disclosed?
Is CVE-2021-3518 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2021-3518?
How do I remediate CVE-2021-3518?
Dependency Blast Radius
See which npm, PyPI, Go, and Maven packages are affected by CVE-2021-3518
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