Cyber Resilience

CVE-2021-38599

High

Published: 12 August 2021

Published
12 August 2021
Modified
21 November 2024
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0017 38.0th percentile
Risk Priority 15 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2021-38599 is a high-severity Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions (CWE-754) vulnerability in Wal-G Project Wal-G. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, ranked at the 38.0th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

WAL-G before 1.1, when a non-libsodium build (e.g., one of the official binary releases published as GitHub Releases) is used, silently ignores the libsodium encryption key and uploads cleartext backups. This is arguably a Principle of Least Surprise violation because…

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"the user likely wanted to encrypt all file activity."

CWE(s)

Related Threats

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

Affected Assets

wal-g project
wal-g
≤ 1.1

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-754

Requires detection and response to audit logging failures as an unusual or exceptional condition.

addresses: CWE-754

Implements detection of unusual or exceptional conditions followed by safe mode entry, reducing the window for exploitation of unchecked conditions.

addresses: CWE-754

Training ensures users perform required checks for unusual or exceptional conditions as part of contingency roles, limiting attacker leverage from skipped validations.

addresses: CWE-754

IR testing directly validates checks for unusual or exceptional conditions that could indicate security incidents.

addresses: CWE-754

Requires ongoing monitoring of organization-defined metrics and analysis, enabling checks for unusual or exceptional conditions.

addresses: CWE-754

Security testing routinely checks for unusual or exceptional inputs/conditions, identifying missing validation steps that flaw remediation then resolves.

addresses: CWE-754

Requires detection of unusual conditions followed by a controlled transition to the defined failure state.

addresses: CWE-754

MTTF determination forces explicit checks for conditions that precede predictable component failure.

References