CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-20021 — SonicWall Email Security Improper Privilege Management Vulnerability

Critical CVSS 9.8 CISA KEV

A vulnerability in the SonicWall Email Security version 10.0.9.x allows an attacker to create an administrative account by sending a crafted HTTP request to the remote host.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.8 (3.1)
Published
2021-04-09
CISA KEV
Known exploited
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-269

Affected products

  • sonicwall / email_security
  • sonicwall / email_security_appliance_9000_firmware
  • sonicwall / email_security_appliance_3300_firmware
  • sonicwall / email_security_appliance_4300_firmware
  • sonicwall / email_security_appliance_8300_firmware
  • sonicwall / email_security_appliance_5000_firmware

Showing 6 representative product identities from 11 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

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Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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