CVE-2021-21986The vSphere Client (HTML5) contains a vulnerability in a vSphere authentication mechanism for the Virtual SAN Health Check, Site Recovery,…
- 9.8CriticalCVSS base score
- 13.3%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 3.6% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
The vSphere Client (HTML5) contains a vulnerability in a vSphere authentication mechanism for the Virtual SAN Health Check, Site Recovery, vSphere Lifecycle Manager, and VMware Cloud Director Availability plug-ins. A malicious actor with network access to port 443 on vCenter Server may perform actions allowed by the impacted plug-ins without authentication.
Timeline
ID reserved
By vmware
- 5 months later
· 5 months later
Published
- 3 years later
· 3 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | Critical9.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 13.3% · top 3.6% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Critical 9.8.
Affected products
VMware vCenter Server and VMware Cloud Foundation
- affected VMware vCenter Server (7.x before 7.0 U2b, 6.7 before 6.7 U3n, 6.5 before 6.5 U3p) and VMware Cloud Foundation (4.x before 4.2.1, 3.x before 3.10.2.1)
References
References2
- https://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2021-0010.html (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/162812/VMware-Security-Advisory-2021-0010.html (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2021-9157 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2021-21986)Record last updated .