A vulnerability in the boot logic of Cisco IOS XE Software could allow an authenticated, local attacker with level 15 privileges or an unauthenticated attacker with physical access to execute arbitrary code on the underlying Linux operating system of an affected device. This vulnerability is due to incorrect validations of specific function arguments that are passed to the boot script. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by tampering with a specific file, which an affected device would process during the initial boot process. On systems that are protected by the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) secure boot feature, a successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute unsigned code at boot time and bypass the image verification check in the secure boot process of the affected device.
CVE-2021-1398
This medium-severity CVE scores 6.8 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 0.1%, top 80% of all CVEs by exploit prediction. GitHub Security Advisory data not yet ingested — confidence will rise once GHSA publishes (typical lag: hours to days for open-source ecosystem CVEs; never for infrastructure-only CVEs).
- Lower severity and no public exploit yet
No vendor fix yet — apply a workaround or compensating control (WAF / firewall / segmentation) and watch for a patch.
- CVSS v3
- 6.8
- EG Score
- 6.8(medium)
- EPSS
- 30.2%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
March 24, 2021
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
References (2)
- psirt@ciscohttps://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-XE-ACE-75K3bRWe
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-XE-ACE-75K3bRWe
Weakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 7× in last 7d / 42× in last 30d)
Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.
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- 2026-05-26 19:27 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-05-26 19:27 UTCGHSA enrichment
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Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2021-1398?
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Dependency Blast Radius
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