CVE-2021-32749

high
Published — · Modified —
CVSS v3
CVSS v2
VIR risk
8.0

Description

fail2ban is a daemon to ban hosts that cause multiple authentication errors. In versions 0.9.7 and prior, 0.10.0 through 0.10.6, and 0.11.0 through 0.11.2, there is a vulnerability that leads to possible remote code execution in the mailing action mail-whois. Command `mail` from mailutils package used in mail actions like `mail-whois` can execute command if unescaped sequences (`\n~`) are available in "foreign" input (for instance in whois output). To exploit the vulnerability, an attacker would need to insert malicious characters into the response sent by the whois server, either via a MITM attack or by taking over a whois server. The issue is patched in versions 0.10.7 and 0.11.3. As a workaround, one may avoid the usage of action `mail-whois` or patch the vulnerability manually.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood
20%
Patch ETA

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: debian — https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2021-32749

OS impact

OSVersionStatusFixed in
arch archfixed0.11.2-2
debian debianbookwormfixed0.11.2-2
debian debianbullseyefixed0.11.2-2
debian debianforkyfixed0.11.2-2
debian debiansidfixed0.11.2-2
debian debiantrixiefixed0.11.2-2

References

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.