Cyber Resilience

CVE-2021-33226

CriticalPublic PoC

Published: 17 February 2023

Published
17 February 2023
Modified
18 March 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0401 88.7th percentile
Risk Priority 22 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2021-33226 is a critical-severity Classic Buffer Overflow (CWE-120) vulnerability in Saltstack Salt. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).

Operationally, ranked in the top 11.3% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Buffer Overflow vulnerability in Saltstack v.3003 and before allows attacker to execute arbitrary code via the func variable in salt/salt/modules/status.py file. NOTE: this is disputed by third parties because an attacker cannot influence the eval input

CWE(s)

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

saltstack
salt
≤ 3003

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-120

Platform-independent managed code eliminates the need for unchecked native buffer copies that are the root cause of classic buffer overflows.

References