CVE-2021-22893

critical

Description

Pulse Connect Secure 9.0R3/9.1R1 and higher is vulnerable to an authentication bypass vulnerability exposed by the Windows File Share Browser and Pulse Secure Collaboration features of Pulse Connect Secure that can allow an unauthenticated user to perform remote arbitrary code execution on the Pulse Connect Secure gateway. This vulnerability has been exploited in the wild.

References

https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2021/04/suspected-apt-actors-leverage-bypass-techniques-pulse-secure-zero-day.html

https://kb.cert.org/vuls/id/213092

https://www.tenable.com/cyber-exposure/a-look-inside-the-ransomware-ecosystem

https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa22-117a

https://www.tenable.com/cyber-exposure/2021-threat-landscape-retrospective

https://web.archive.org/web/20211025233339/https://twitter.com/pancak3lullz/status/1452679527197560837

https://www.mandiant.com/resources/blog/suspected-apt-actors-leverage-bypass-techniques-pulse-secure-zero-day

https://www.tenable.com/blog/cve-2025-0282-ivanti-connect-secure-zero-day-vulnerability-exploited-in-the-wild

https://www.tenable.com/blog/cve-2023-46805-cve-2024-21887-zero-day-vulnerabilities-exploited-in-ivanti-connect-secure-and

https://www.tenable.com/blog/behind-the-scenes-how-we-picked-2021s-top-vulnerabilities-and-what-we-left-out

https://www.tenable.com/blog/hold-the-door-why-organizations-need-to-prioritize-patching-ssl-vpns

https://www.tenable.com/blog/cve-2021-22893-zero-day-vulnerability-in-pulse-connect-secure-exploited-in-the-wild

https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/213092

https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2021-22893

https://kb.pulsesecure.net/articles/Pulse_Security_Advisories/SA44784/

https://blog.pulsesecure.net/pulse-connect-secure-security-update/

Details

Source: Mitre, NVD

Published: 2021-04-23

Updated: 2025-10-30

Known Exploited Vulnerability (KEV)

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Base Score: 7.5

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Severity: High

CVSS v3

Base Score: 10

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Severity: Critical

EPSS

EPSS: 0.93607