Insecure default variable initialization for the Intel BSSA DFT feature may allow a privileged user to potentially enable an escalation of…

published 2021-07-14 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-2763

cvss: 6.7; version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.3%; EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 25%
public exploits: 0; none known

Insecure default variable initialization for the Intel BSSA DFT feature may allow a privileged user to potentially enable an escalation of privilege via local access.

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-0144 updated 2026-11-07 cvss 7.5

kernel: hw: Insecure default variable initialization for the Intel BSSA DFT feature

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-tools, +3 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-core, kernel-tools, python3-perf, +17 more
not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.33% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 25% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	3.1	6.7	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	2.0	7.2	AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Affected products

n/a Intel BSSA DFTrs

Classification

Weakness

CWE-1188 Initialization of a Resource with an Insecure Default

References

intel.com /content/www/us/en/security-center/advisory/intel-sa-00525.html
vendor-advisory
intel.com /content/www/us/en/security-center/advisory/intel-sa-00527.html
vendor-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2021-0144
NVD CVE-2021-0144

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary