CVE-2021-21341
XStream: allow a remote attacker to cause DoS only by manipulating the processed input stream
Severity
ModerateRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.1
Review impact separately from score.
Published · March 12, 2021
Updated · October 8, 2026
Description
XStream is a Java library to serialize objects to XML and back again. In XStream before version 1.4.16, there is vulnerability which may allow a remote attacker to allocate 100% CPU time on the target system depending on CPU type or parallel execution of such a payload resulting in a denial of service only by manipulating the processed input stream. No user is affected who followed the recommendation to setup XStream's security framework with a whitelist limited to the minimal required types. If you rely on XStream's default blacklist of the Security Framework, you will have to use at least version 1.4.16.
Statement
OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) delivers Jenkins LTS package with bundled XStream library. Due to JEP-200 [1] and JEP-228 [2] Jenkins projects, OCP Jenkins package is not affected by this flaw.
[1] https://github.com/jenkinsci/jep/blob/master/jep/200/README.adoc [2] https://github.com/jenkinsci/jep/blob/master/jep/228/README.adoc#security
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
No mitigation is specified in collected source.
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.1 · 5.9CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE-770 · Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling