NSS (Network Security Services) versions prior to 3.73 or 3.68.1 ESR are vulnerable to a heap overflow when handling DER-encoded DSA or RSA-PSS signatures. Applications using NSS for handling signatures encoded within CMS, S/MIME, PKCS \#7, or PKCS \#12 are likely to be impacted. Applications using NSS for certificate validation or other TLS, X.509, OCSP or CRL functionality may be impacted, depending on how they configure NSS. *Note: This vulnerability does NOT impact Mozilla Firefox.* However, email clients and PDF viewers that use NSS for signature verification, such as Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Evolution and Evince are believed to be impacted. This vulnerability affects NSS < 3.73 and NSS < 3.68.1.
CVE-2021-43527
Score 9.8 from GitHub Security Advisory (severity: CRITICAL) published 2021-12-09. NVD baseline CVSS 9.8; sources differ by 0.0.
- High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 9.8
- EG Score
- 9.8(medium)
- EG Risk
- 65(Track*)EG Risk 65/100SSVC: 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 computedSeverity98% × 45%Exploitation40% × 40%Automatability30% × 15%Action: Watch closely — could escalate to Attend. - EPSS PROB
- 18%
- EPSS %ILE
- 97%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
December 8, 2021
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
Advisory Details (8)
Auto-updated Sep 4, 20261737470 - (CVE-2021-43527) Memory Corruption in decodeECorDsaSignature with DSA signatures (and RSA-PSS)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1737470CVE-2021-43527 NSS heap overflow in StarWind products
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/security/sw-20220802-0001/Memory corruption in NSS via DER-encoded DSA and RSA-PSS signatures — Mozilla
https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2021-51/Mozilla Network Security Service (NSS): Multiple Vulnerabilities (GLSA 202212-05) — Gentoo security
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202212-05Directory Listing: /pub/security/nss/releases/NSS_3_73_RTM/
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/security/nss/releases/NSS_3_73_RTM/Directory Listing: /pub/security/nss/releases/NSS_3_68_1_RTM/
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/security/nss/releases/NSS_3_68_1_RTM/Vendor Advisories for CVE-2021-43527(6)
These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.
- RHSA-2021:4994Red Hat Product SecurityCritical
Red Hat Security Advisory: nss security update
- RHSA-2021:4946Red Hat Product SecurityCritical
Red Hat Security Advisory: nss security update
- RHSA-2021:4933Red Hat Product SecurityCritical
Red Hat Security Advisory: nss security update
- RHSA-2021:4932Red Hat Product SecurityCritical
Red Hat Security Advisory: nss security update
- RHSA-2021:4907Red Hat Product SecurityCritical
Red Hat Security Advisory: nss security update
- RHSA-2021:4904Red Hat Product SecurityCritical
Red Hat Security Advisory: nss security update
Patch Availability(18)
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
(13 across 13 ecosystems)
Alpine:v3.12(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | — | 3.60-r2 | — |
Alpine:v3.19(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | — | 3.73-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.20(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | — | 3.73-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.21(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | — | 3.73-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.22(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | — | 3.73-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.23(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | — | 3.73-r0 | — |
Alpine:v3.24(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | — | 3.73-r0 | — |
Debian:10(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | 2:3.42.1-1, 2:3.42.1-1+deb10u1, 2:3.42.1-1+deb10u2, 2:3.42.1-1+deb10u3 | 2:3.42.1-1+deb10u4 | — |
Debian:11(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | 2:3.61-1 | 2:3.61-1+deb11u1 | — |
Debian:12(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | — | 2:3.73-1 | — |
Debian:13(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | — | 2:3.73-1 | — |
Debian:14(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | — | 2:3.73-1 | — |
Debian:9(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| nss | 2:3.26.2-1.1, 2:3.26.2-1.1+deb9u1, 2:3.26.2-1.1+deb9u2 | 2:3.26.2-1.1+deb9u3 | — |
Weakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Additional Vendor Advisories
(13)
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-2021-435272021-12-17
NSS (Network Security Services) versions prior to 3.73 or 3.68.1 ESR are vulnerable to a heap overflow when handling DER-encoded DSA or RSA-PSS signatures. Applications using NSS for handling signatures encoded within CMS S/MIME PKCS \#7 or PKCS \#12 are likely to be impacted. Applications using NSS for certificate validation or other TLS X.509 OCSP or CRL functionality may be impacted depending on how they configure NSS. *Note: This vulnerability does NOT impact Mozilla Firefox.* However email clients and PDF viewers that use NSS for signature verification such as Thunderbird LibreOffice Evolution and Evince are believed to be impacted. This vulnerability affects NSS < 3.73 and NSS < 3.68.1.
- Red HatRHSA-2021:4903CRITICAL2021-12-01
RHSA-2021:4903 — Critical
- Red HatRHSA-2021:4909CRITICAL2021-12-01
RHSA-2021:4909 — Critical
- Red HatRHSA-2021:4919CRITICAL2021-12-01
RHSA-2021:4919 — Critical
- Red HatRHSA-2021:4953CRITICAL2021-12-01
RHSA-2021:4953 — Critical
- Red HatRHSA-2021:4954CRITICAL2021-12-01
RHSA-2021:4954 — Critical
- Red HatRHSA-2021:4969CRITICAL2021-12-01
RHSA-2021:4969 — Critical
- Red HatRHSA-2021:5006CRITICAL2021-12-01
RHSA-2021:5006 — Critical
- Red HatRHSA-2021:5035CRITICAL2021-12-01
RHSA-2021:5035 — Critical
- UbuntuUSN-5168-1HIGH
NSS vulnerability
- UbuntuUSN-5168-2HIGH
Thunderbird vulnerability
- UbuntuUSN-5168-3HIGH
NSS vulnerability
- UbuntuUSN-5168-4HIGH
NSS regression
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 7× 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 145 total refreshes for this CVE.
- 2026-09-07 15:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-09-06 02:00 UTCOSV refresh
- 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
- 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
- 2026-08-19 17:01 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-19 13:29 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-08-18 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-16 14:53 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 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
- 2026-08-08 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 10:34 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-04 09:27 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-08-03 10:33 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-01 04:13 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-30 16:25 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 02:05 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 22:51 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 10:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-18 10:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-18 06:29 UTCOSV refresh
- 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
- 2026-07-05 02:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-05 02:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-02 16:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 15:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-30 03:00 UTCOSV refresh
- 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
- 2026-06-18 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-18 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-17 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-17 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-17 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-16 17:51 UTCEPSS rescore
Related CVEs(same vendor + same CWE)
Same vendor
10 shownredhat
- CVE-2001-0825EG 10.0HIGH
- CVE-2001-0554EG 10.0EPSS p98HIGH
- CVE-2001-0414EG 10.0EPSS p100HIGH
- CVE-2001-0191EG 10.0EPSS p92HIGH
- CVE-2001-0301EG 10.0EPSS p91HIGH
- CVE-2001-0197EG 10.0EPSS p96HIGH
- CVE-2001-0233EG 10.0EPSS p96HIGH
- CVE-2001-0010EG 10.0EPSS p98HIGH
- CVE-2001-0011EG 10.0EPSS p94HIGH
- CVE-2001-0013EG 10.0EPSS p96HIGH
Same CWE
10 shownCWE-787
Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2021-43527?
When was CVE-2021-43527 disclosed?
Is CVE-2021-43527 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2021-43527?
How do I remediate CVE-2021-43527?
Dependency Blast Radius
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