What is CVE-2021-38959?

CVE-2021-38959 is a medium-severity vulnerability in IBM Spss Statistics, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2021-11-17.

How severe is CVE-2021-38959?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.

Buffer overflow in IBM Spss Statistics

CVE-2021-38959

IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows 24.0, 25.0, 26.0, 27.0, 27.0.1, and 28.0 could allow a local user to cause a denial of service by writing arbitrary files to admin protected directories on the system. IBM X-Force ID: 212046.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published 2021-11-17 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (11.8th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 12th percentile — 11.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: +0.000

Affected products

IBM Spss Statistics — versions 24.0, 27.0.1, 25.0
IBM Spss Statistics — versions 24.0.0.0, 25.0.0.0, 26.0.0.0
Microsoft Windows

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-787 — Out-of-bounds Write

References

www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6516680 (Vendor Advisory)
exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/212046 (VDB Entry, vdb-entry, Vendor Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-38959?: CVE-2021-38959 is a medium-severity vulnerability in IBM Spss Statistics, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2021-11-17.
How severe is CVE-2021-38959?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.