Admin privilege escalation and arbitrary code execution via malicious *.etherpad imports (CVE-2021-43802)
Published Sources: CVE.org
What is affected, what to do
Etherpad is a real-time collaborative editor. In versions prior to 1.8.16, an attacker can craft an `*.etherpad` file that, when imported, might allow the attacker to gain admin privileges for the Etherpad instance.
Update Etherpad-lite to version 1.8.16.
- Affected
- Etherpad-lite
lt *..1.8.16
- Etherpad-lite
- Fixed in
- Etherpad-lite
1.8.16
- Etherpad-lite
Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability
Metrics
9.9
Priority
XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.
Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3
9.9
CVSS v3
Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.
Source: CVE.org
2.1 %
EPSS score
Moderate — model estimates 1-10% exploitation likelihood.
Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 81.2
Show all metrics
- Severity
- Critical
Priority (0–325)
The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?
Read in glossary- 102.42 Methodology
Exploit maturity
An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.
Read in glossary- no public PoC known
XIEM Effective CVSS
XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.
Read in glossary- 9.9 Methodology
CVSS v3
CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.
Read in glossary- 9.9
EPSS score
The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.
Read in glossary- 2.1 %
- Moderate — model estimates 1-10% exploitation likelihood.
EPSS percentile
The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.
Read in glossary- 81.2
- Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
KEV status
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- —
- Published
CWE
CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.
Read in glossary- CWE-790, CWE-1287
Detection rules
No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.
Classification under NIS2 and CRA
Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.
NIS2
NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.
Read in glossary- High technical severity: assess and remediate the vulnerability in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2 and document the decision.
CRA
The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.
Read in glossary- From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.
Read in glossary- Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.
Description
Etherpad is a real-time collaborative editor. In versions prior to 1.8.16, an attacker can craft an `*.etherpad` file that, when imported, might allow the attacker to gain admin privileges for the Etherpad instance. This, in turn, can be used to install a malicious Etherpad plugin that can execute arbitrary code (including system commands). To gain privileges, the attacker must be able to trigger deletion of `express-session` state or wait for old `express-session` state to be cleaned up. Core Etherpad does not delete any `express-session` state, so the only known attacks require either a plugin that can delete session state or a custom cleanup process (such as a cron job that deletes old `sessionstorage:*` records). The problem has been fixed in version 1.8.16. If users cannot upgrade to 1.8.16 or install patches manually, several workarounds are available. Users may configure their reverse proxies to reject requests to `/p/*/import`, which will block all imports, not just `*.etherpad` imports; limit all users to read-only access; and/or prevent the reuse of `express_sid` cookie values that refer to deleted express-session state. More detailed information and general mitigation strategies may be found in the GitHub Security Advisory.
Source: NVD (NIST), cvelistv5
Affected products
The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.
| Affected versions | Fixed in | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| ether | etherpad-lite |
|
|
| etherpad | etherpad |
|
|
Vendors and products
Weakness classes (CWE)
CWE-790Improper Filtering of Special Elements
Class
The product receives data from an upstream component, but does not filter or incorrectly filters special elements before sending it to a downstream component.
Entry at MITRE CWE-790CWE-1287Improper Validation of Specified Type of Input
Base
The product receives input that is expected to be of a certain type, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input is actually of the expected type.
Entry at MITRE CWE-1287
References & sources
- github.comether/etherpad-lite/security/advisories/GHSA-w3g3-qf3g-2mqcx_refsource_CONFIRM, Mitigation, Patch, Third-party advisory
- github.comether/etherpad-lite/issues/5010x_refsource_MISC, Issue tracking, Third-party advisory
- github.comether/etherpad-lite/compare/b7065eb9a0ec7c3c265f8cfeb2534efe6f0…x_refsource_MISC, Patch, Third-party advisory
- github.comether/etherpad-lite/releases/tag/1.8.16x_refsource_MISC, Release notes, Third-party advisory
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<a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2021-43802"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2021-43802.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2021-43802 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>