What is CVE-2021-43998?

CVE-2021-43998 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Hashicorp Vault, classified under Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource. CVSS score: 6.5/10. Published 2021-11-30.

How severe is CVE-2021-43998?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.5 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Hashicorp Vault

CVE-2021-43998

HashiCorp Vault and Vault Enterprise 0.11.0 up to 1.7.5 and 1.8.4 templated ACL policies would always match the first-created entity alias if multiple entity aliases exist for a specified entity and mount combination, potentially resulting in incorrect policy enforcement. Fixed in Vault and Vault Enterprise 1.7.6, 1.8.5, and 1.9.0.

Published 2021-11-30 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.010 (62.7th percentile), scored 2026-10-02.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 63rd percentile — 62.7% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.010 · newest: 0.010 · change: +0.000

Affected products

Hashicorp Vault — versions 1.8.4

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-732 — Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource

References

discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2021-30-vaults-templated-acl-policies-matched-fir… (Vendor Advisory)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/202207-01 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-43998?: CVE-2021-43998 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Hashicorp Vault, classified under Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource. CVSS score: 6.5/10. Published 2021-11-30.
How severe is CVE-2021-43998?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.5 out of 10.