CVE-2021-41598UI misrepresentation of granted permissions in GitHub Enterprise Server leading to unauthorized access to user
- 8.8HighCVSS base score
- 1.2%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 33% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
A UI misrepresentation vulnerability was identified in GitHub Enterprise Server that allowed more permissions to be granted during a GitHub App's user-authorization web flow than was displayed to the user during approval. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need to create a GitHub App on the instance and have a user authorize the application through the web authentication flow. All permissions being granted would properly be shown during the first authorization, but if the user later updated the set of repositories the app was installed on after the GitHub App had configured additional user-level permissions, those additional permissions would not be displayed, leading to more permissions being granted than the user potentially intended. This vulnerability affected all versions of GitHub Enterprise Server prior to 3.3 and was fixed in versions 3.2.5, 3.1.13, 3.0.21. This vulnerability was reported via the GitHub Bug Bounty program.
Timeline
ID reserved
By GitHub_P
- 4 months later
· 4 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 | High8.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 1.2% · top 33% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 8.8.
Affected products
GitHub · GitHub Enterprise Server
- affected 3.0 – < 3.0.21
- affected 3.1 – < 3.1.13
- affected 3.2 – < 3.2.5
References
References3
- https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server%403.0/admin/release-notes#3.0.21 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server%403.1/admin/release-notes#3.1.13 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server%403.2/admin/release-notes#3.2.5 (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-2021-28612 (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-2021-41598)Record last updated .