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Fencer Vulns
high 7.0

CVE-2021-29221 json

A local privilege escalation vulnerability was discovered in Erlang/OTP prior to version 23.2.3.

published 2021-04-09 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-15860

cvss
7.0
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.6%
EPSS 0.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 48%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A local privilege escalation vulnerability was discovered in Erlang/OTP prior to version 23.2.3. By adding files to an existing installation's directory, a local attacker could hijack accounts of other users running Erlang programs or possibly coerce a service running with "erlsrv.exe" to execute arbitrary code as Local System. This can occur only under specific conditions on Windows with unsafe filesystem permissions.

Patch / fix

  • erlang erlang/otp 23.2.3

Exploit prediction

0.58% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 48% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • deepsurface.com https://deepsurface.com/deepsurface-security-advisory-local-privilege-escalation-in-erlang-on-windows-cve-2021-29221/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.2 AV:L/AC:H/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Affected products

  • Erlang Project Erlang/OTP

Classification

Weakness

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.