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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.3

CVE-2021-21394 json

Denial of service (via resource exhaustion) due to improper input validation on third-party identifier endpoints

published 2021-04-12 5 y ago modified 2026-07-08 4 mo ago also GHSA-w9fg-xffh-p362 , PYSEC-2021-27 , EUVD-2021-0130

cvss
5.3
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.5%
EPSS 1.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 75%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Synapse is a Matrix reference homeserver written in python (pypi package matrix-synapse). Matrix is an ecosystem for open federated Instant Messaging and VoIP. In Synapse before version 1.28.0 Synapse is missing input validation of some parameters on the endpoints used to confirm third-party identifiers could cause excessive use of disk space and memory leading to resource exhaustion. Note that the groups feature is not part of the Matrix specification and the chosen maximum lengths are arbitrary. Not all clients might abide by them. Refer to referenced GitHub security advisory for additional details including workarounds.

Patch / fix

  • pypi matrix-synapse 1.28.0
  • matrix synapse 1.28.0

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-2021-21394 updated cvss 6.5

matrix-synapse: missing input validation may cause excessive use of disk space and memory

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    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

1.54% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 75% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 4.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:P
GitHub 3.1 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi matrix-synapse
<1.28.0
1.28.0

Affected products

  • matrix-org synapse

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

References

Sources

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.