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Fencer Vulns
high 8.8

CVE-2021-38501 json

Mozilla developers reported memory safety bugs present in Firefox 92 and Firefox ESR 91.1.

published 2021-11-03 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-24953

cvss
8.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.0%
EPSS 1.0% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 64%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Mozilla developers reported memory safety bugs present in Firefox 92 and Firefox ESR 91.1. Some of these bugs showed evidence of memory corruption and we presume that with enough effort some of these could have been exploited to run arbitrary code. This vulnerability affects Firefox < 93, Thunderbird < 91.2, and Firefox ESR < 91.2.

Patch / fix

  • Mozilla Firefox 93
  • Mozilla Thunderbird 91.2
  • Mozilla Firefox ESR 91.2
  • firefox Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 93.0+build1-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
  • firefox Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 93.0+build1-0ubuntu0.20.04.1
  • thunderbird Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 1:91.5.0+build1-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
  • thunderbird Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 1:91.5.0+build1-0ubuntu0.20.04.1
  • thunderbird Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 1:91.3.0+build2-0ubuntu1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-38501

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

  • thunderbird RHEL 7 91.2.0-1.el7_9
  • thunderbird RHEL 8 91.2.0-1.el8_4
  • firefox RHEL 7 91.2.0-4.el7_9
  • firefox RHEL 8 91.2.0-4.el8_4
  • thunderbird RHEL 8.2 EUS 91.2.0-1.el8_2
  • thunderbird RHEL 8.1 EUS 91.2.0-1.el8_1
  • firefox RHEL 8.1 EUS 91.2.0-4.el8_1
  • firefox RHEL 8.2 EUS 91.2.0-4.el8_2

red hat advisories RHSA-2021:3839RHSA-2021:3841RHSA-2021:3838RHSA-2021:3840RHSA-2021:3791RHSA-2021:3757

  • MozillaThunderbird SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP3, SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP2 91.4.0-8.45.2
  • MozillaFirefox SLE Module for Desktop Applications 15 SP3, SLE Module for Desktop Applications 15 SP2 91.2.0-8.54.1
  • MozillaFirefox-branding-SLE SLE Module for Desktop Applications 15 SP3, SLE Module for Desktop Applications 15 SP2 91-9.5.1
  • MozillaFirefox SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES for SAP 12 SP3 +11 more 91.2.0-112.74.1
  • MozillaFirefox SLES for SAP 15 SP1, SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS +7 more 91.2.0-3.155.2
  • MozillaFirefox-branding-SLE SLES for SAP 15 SP1, SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS +7 more 91-4.19.1
  • MozillaFirefox SLES 11 SP4-LTSS 91.2.0-78.143.1
  • MozillaFirefox-branding-SLED SLES 11 SP4-LTSS 91-21.18.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2021:4150-1SUSE-SU-2021:14826-1SUSE-SU-2021:3451-1SUSE-SU-2021:3446-1SUSE-SU-2021:3331-1

  • firefox-esr openSUSE Tumbleweed 128.5.1-1.1
  • MozillaFirefox openSUSE Tumbleweed 93.0-1.1
  • MozillaThunderbird openSUSE Tumbleweed 91.2.0-1.1
  • MozillaThunderbird openSUSE Leap 15.2 91.4.0-lp152.2.52.1
  • MozillaThunderbird openSUSE Leap 15.3 91.4.0-8.45.2
  • MozillaFirefox openSUSE Leap 15.2 91.2.0-lp152.2.67.1
  • rust-cbindgen openSUSE Leap 15.2 0.19.0-lp152.2.7.1
  • MozillaFirefox openSUSE Leap 15.3 91.2.0-8.54.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:14572-1openSUSE-SU-2024:11570-1openSUSE-SU-2024:11571-1openSUSE-SU-2021:1635-1openSUSE-SU-2021:4150-1openSUSE-SU-2021:1367-1

  • thunderbird Rocky Linux 8 91.2.0-1.el8_4
  • firefox Rocky Linux 8 91.2.0-4.el8_4

rocky linux advisories RLSA-2021:3838RLSA-2021:3755

  • firefox Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22, Alpine 3.21 +6 more 93.0-r0
  • librewolf Alpine 3.24, Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22 +1 more 93.0-r0
  • firefox-esr Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22, Alpine 3.21 +6 more 91.2.0-r0
  • thunderbird Alpine 3.23, Alpine 3.22, Alpine 3.21 +5 more 91.3.2-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2021-38501

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

  • firefox Arch Linux 93.0-1
  • thunderbird Arch Linux 91.2.0-1

arch linux advisories AVG-2443AVG-2459

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-2021-38501 updated cvss 8.8

Mozilla: Memory safety bugs fixed in Firefox 93 and Firefox ESR 91.2

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 firefox, thunderbird
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 8) firefox 91.2.0-4.el8_4, thunderbird 91.2.0-1.el8_4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:3755
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream EUS (v. 8.1) firefox 91.2.0-4.el8_1, thunderbird 91.2.0-1.el8_1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:3757
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream EUS (v. 8.2) firefox 91.2.0-4.el8_2, thunderbird 91.2.0-1.el8_2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:3756
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) firefox 91.2.0-4.el7_9, thunderbird 91.2.0-1.el7_9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) firefox 91.2.0-4.el7_9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) firefox 91.2.0-4.el7_9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) firefox 91.2.0-4.el7_9, thunderbird 91.2.0-1.el7_9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) firefox 91.2.0-4.el7_9, thunderbird 91.2.0-1.el7_9 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) firefox 91.2.0-4.el7_9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2021:3791

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

1.05% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 64% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected products

  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Mozilla Thunderbird
  • Mozilla Firefox ESR

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.