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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.3

CVE-2021-38165 json

Lynx through 2.8.9 mishandles the userinfo subcomponent of a URI, which allows remote attackers to discover cleartext credentials because t…

published 2021-08-07 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-24635

cvss
5.3
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.9%
EPSS 3.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 90%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Lynx through 2.8.9 mishandles the userinfo subcomponent of a URI, which allows remote attackers to discover cleartext credentials because they may appear in SNI data.

Patch / fix

  • lynx Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.9.0dev.6-3

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-38165

  • lynx Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS 2.8.9dev8-4ubuntu1+esm2
  • lynx Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS 2.8.9dev16-3ubuntu0.1~esm1
  • lynx Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS 2.9.0dev.5-1ubuntu0.1~esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-38165

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • lynx RHEL 8 2.8.9-4.el8

red hat advisories RHSA-2022:2129

  • lynx AlmaLinux 8 2.8.9-4.el8

almalinux advisories ALSA-2022:2129

  • lynx Rocky Linux 8 2.8.9-4.el8

rocky linux advisories RLSA-2022:2129

  • lynx Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +7 more 2.8.9_p1-r3

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2021-38165

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

  • lynx Arch Linux 2.8.9-4

arch linux advisories AVG-2261

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-2021-38165 updated cvss 5.3

lynx: Disclosure of HTTP authentication credentials via SNI data

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 lynx
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux CRB (v. 8) lynx 2.8.9-4.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:2129
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 lynx Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 lynx
    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

3.94% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 90% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 2.6 AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-522 Insufficiently Protected Credentials

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.