CVE-2021-20021: SonicWall Email Security Improper Privilege Management Vulnerability
SonicWall Email Security contains an improper privilege management vulnerability that allows an attacker to create an administrative account by sending a crafted HTTP request to the remote host. This vulnerability has known usage in a SonicWall Email Security exploit chain along with CVE-2021-20022 and CVE-2021-20023 to achieve privilege escalation.
| Vendor | SonicWall |
|---|---|
| Product | SonicWall Email Security |
| Date added to KEV | 2021-11-03 |
| Due date (BOD 22-01) | 2021-11-17 |
| Known ransomware campaign use | Known |
| CWE | CWE-306 |
| Required action | Apply updates per vendor instructions. |
What to do
- Identify every instance of SonicWall SonicWall Email Security in your environment (asset inventory, EDR, vulnerability scanner).
- Apply CISA's required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions.
- Federal civilian agencies must act by 2021-11-17 under BOD 22-01; other organizations can use the same date as a target.
- Because ransomware use is known, check for signs of compromise and confirm backups are offline and tested.
- Check the vendor advisory and NVD entry linked below for affected versions, then record the fix in your change log.
This CVE is flagged by CISA as known to be used in ransomware campaigns. Rehearse your response before you need it: Ransomware tabletop exercise kit (Runbook Foundry).
Sources
- NVD entry for CVE-2021-20021 (severity scores, if any, live there)
- CISA KEV catalog entry
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-20021