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.
CVE-2021-38501
This high-severity CVE scores 8.8 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit probability: 1.0%, top 40% 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).
- High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 8.8
- EG Score
- 8.8(medium)
- EG Risk
- —
- EPSS
- 59.6%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
November 3, 2021
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
References (8)
- security@mozillahttps://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?bug_id=1685354%2C1715755%2C1723176
- security@mozillahttps://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2021-43/
- security@mozillahttps://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2021-45/
- security@mozillahttps://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2021-47/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?bug_id=1685354%2C1715755%2C1723176
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2021-43/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2021-45/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2021-47/
Vendor Advisories for CVE-2021-38501(2)
These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.
Patch Availability(11)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fixed in / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| ubuntu | thunderbird-locale-id (1:91.2.1+build1-0ubuntu0.21.10.1) @ impish | 2026-05-26 | ubuntu |
| ubuntu | firefox-locale-ast (93.0+build1-0ubuntu0.21.04.1) @ hirsute | 2026-05-26 | ubuntu |
| ubuntu | thunderbird-locale-id (1:91.5.0+build1-0ubuntu0.20.04.1) @ focal | 2026-05-26 | ubuntu |
| redhat | thunderbird-0:91.2.0-1.el8_4 | 2021-10-13 | redhat |
| redhat | thunderbird-0:91.2.0-1.el8_1 | 2021-10-13 | redhat |
| redhat | thunderbird-0:91.2.0-1.el7_9 | 2021-10-13 | redhat |
| redhat | thunderbird-0:91.2.0-1.el8_2 | 2021-10-13 | redhat |
| redhat | firefox-0:91.2.0-4.el7_9 | 2021-10-12 | redhat |
| redhat | firefox-0:91.2.0-4.el8_4 | 2021-10-11 | redhat |
| redhat | firefox-0:91.2.0-4.el8_2 | 2021-10-11 | redhat |
| redhat | firefox-0:91.2.0-4.el8_1 | 2021-10-11 | redhat |
Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.
Additional Vendor Advisories
(9)
Vendors that published advisories for this CVE beyond the curated set above. Broader coverage but minimal per-row detail — click through for the original advisory.
- Red HatRHSA-2021:3755IMPORTANT2021-10-05
RHSA-2021:3755 — Important
- Red HatRHSA-2021:3756IMPORTANT2021-10-05
RHSA-2021:3756 — Important
- Red HatRHSA-2021:3757IMPORTANT2021-10-05
RHSA-2021:3757 — Important
- Red HatRHSA-2021:3838IMPORTANT2021-10-05
RHSA-2021:3838 — Important
- Red HatRHSA-2021:3839IMPORTANT2021-10-05
RHSA-2021:3839 — Important
- Red HatRHSA-2021:3840IMPORTANT2021-10-05
RHSA-2021:3840 — Important
- UbuntuUSN-5107-1MEDIUM
Firefox vulnerabilities
- UbuntuUSN-5132-1MEDIUM
Thunderbird vulnerabilities
- UbuntuUSN-5248-1MEDIUM
Thunderbird vulnerabilities
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 13× in last 7d / 44× 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.
- 2026-07-22 22:50 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 14:06 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-07 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-06 02:21 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 08:07 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-05-26 08:07 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-05-26 08:07 UTCGHSA enrichment
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
Related CVEs(same vendor)
Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2021-38501?
When was CVE-2021-38501 disclosed?
Is CVE-2021-38501 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2021-38501?
How do I remediate CVE-2021-38501?
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