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Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2021-29157 json

Dovecot before 2.3.15 allows ../ Path Traversal.

published 2021-06-28 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-15796

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 40%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Dovecot before 2.3.15 allows ../ Path Traversal. An attacker with access to the local filesystem can trick OAuth2 authentication into using an HS256 validation key from an attacker-controlled location. This occurs during use of local JWT validation with the posix fs driver.

Patch / fix

  • dovecot dovecot 2.3.14.1
  • dovecot Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1:2.3.13+dfsg1-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-29157

  • dovecot23 SLE Module for Server Applications 15 SP3, SLE Module for Server Applications 15 SP2 2.3.15-58.3
  • dovecot23 SLES for SAP 15 SP1, SLES 15 SP1-LTSS, SLES 15 SP1-BCL +6 more 2.3.15-27.3
  • dovecot23 SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 2.3.15-4.38.3
  • dovecot23 SLES for SAP 15 SP1, SLES 15 SP1-LTSS, SLES 15 SP1-BCL +6 more 2.3.11.3-24.1
  • dovecot23 SLE Module for Server Applications 15 SP3, SLE Module for Server Applications 15 SP2 2.3.11.3-55.1
  • dovecot23 SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 2.3.11.3-4.35.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2021:2892-1SUSE-SU-2021:2891-1SUSE-SU-2021:2890-1SUSE-SU-2021:2124-1SUSE-SU-2021:2123-1SUSE-SU-2021:2122-1

  • dovecot24 openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.4.0-1.1
  • dovecot23 openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.3.16-1.6
  • dovecot23 openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.3.15-lp152.2.12.1
  • dovecot23 openSUSE Leap 15.3 2.3.15-58.3
  • dovecot23 openSUSE Leap 15.3 2.3.11.3-55.1
  • dovecot23 openSUSE Leap 15.2 2.3.11.3-lp152.2.9.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2025:14715-1openSUSE-SU-2024:10726-1openSUSE-SU-2021:1225-1openSUSE-SU-2021:2892-1openSUSE-SU-2021:2123-1openSUSE-SU-2021:0920-1

  • dovecot Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +11 more 2.3.15-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2021-29157

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • dovecot CBL-Mariner 2.0 2.3.20-1

azure linux advisories AZL-7195

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

  • dovecot Arch Linux 2.3.15-1

arch linux advisories AVG-2087

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-2021-29157 updated cvss 6.3

dovecot: local attacker can login as any user and access their emails

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 dovecot, dovecot-mysql, dovecot-pgsql, dovecot-pigeonhole
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 dovecot, dovecot-mysql, dovecot-pgsql, dovecot-pigeonhole Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 dovecot, dovecot-mysql, dovecot-pgsql, dovecot-pigeonhole Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 dovecot, dovecot-mysql, dovecot-pgsql, dovecot-pigeonhole
    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

0.47% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 40% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AC:H/AV:L/A:N/C:H/I:H/PR:L/S:C/UI:N
CNA 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 2.1 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory

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.