Threat Intelligence / CVE / CVE-2021-22205

CVE-2021-22205 — Gitlab

CISA KEVRansomware

CVSS v3.1 10 (CRITICAL) · EPSS 94.4% (higher than 99.9% of all scored CVEs) · Priority 10/10 · Published 2021-04-23

As of 2025-10-24, CVE-2021-22205 is a CRITICAL-severity vulnerability in Gitlab, CVSS v3.1 10, EPSS 94.4% (99.9th percentile). It is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03), with a US federal remediation deadline of 2021-11-17, and CISA links it to known ransomware campaigns. Threadlinqs Intelligence links 2 tracked threat campaigns to CVE-2021-22205, most recently “Fodcha — Cross-Architecture DDoS Botnet Spreading via N-Day Exploits (CVE-2021-22205, CVE-2021-35394) and Telnet/SSH Brute-Force, Later Adding Ransom DDoS”.

Last updated: 2025-10-24

What is CVE-2021-22205?

An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions starting from 11.9. GitLab was not properly validating image files that were passed to a file parser which resulted in a remote command execution vulnerability.

The record classifies CVE-2021-22205 under weakness class CWE-94. Its CVSS v3 base vector states that the flaw is reachable remotely over the network, needs no prior authentication, needs no user interaction, and has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability. 2 affected-product entries are recorded, across 1 vendor, listed below. The identifier was first published 1969 days ago.

Severity and exploitation probability

CVSS v3.1 base score: 10 — CRITICAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS (FIRST): 94.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99.9% of all scored CVEs
CISA KEV: Listed since 2021-11-03, federal remediation deadline 2021-11-17 — used in known ransomware campaigns
Threadlinqs priority: 10/10 — CISA lists it as used in ransomware, which Threadlinqs scores at the maximum
Published: 2021-04-23, last modified 2025-10-24

Is CVE-2021-22205 being exploited?

CISA added CVE-2021-22205 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03, which means the agency holds evidence of exploitation in the wild; US federal civilian agencies had to remediate it by 2021-11-17 under BOD 22-01. CISA flags the vulnerability as one used in known ransomware campaigns. It currently carries a trending score of 40 in the Threadlinqs vulnerability feed.

Affected products and versions

Gitlab: Gitlab

Showing 1 of 2 recorded product entries.

How to fix CVE-2021-22205

The record marks a vendor fix as available for CVE-2021-22205. Vendor advisory: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cves/-/blob/master/2021/CVE-2021-22205.json. Because CVE-2021-22205 is KEV-listed, US federal civilian agencies were required to apply the vendor fix, or stop using the product, by 2021-11-17. Apply the vendor fix referenced above to every affected product listed in this record, then confirm the running version against the vendor advisory.

Threat activity tracking CVE-2021-22205

2 tracked threats in the Threadlinqs corpus reference CVE-2021-22205, either in the campaign’s CVE list or as an indicator on the campaign record.

Fodcha — Cross-Architecture DDoS Botnet Spreading via N-Day Exploits (CVE-2021-22205, CVE-2021-35394) and Telnet/SSH Brute-Force, Later Adding Ransom DDoS — HIGH · 2026-06-10
APT35 (Charming Kitten) GCC Pre-Positioning Cyber Reconnaissance Campaign Enabling Kinetic Targeting — CRITICAL · 2026-04-09

Sources

Seeded from nvd and not yet processed by the Threadlinqs enrichment pipeline, so blank CVSS, EPSS or KEV fields above mean NOT MEASURED rather than measured-absent.

Full detection coverage & IOCs for threats exploiting CVE-2021-22205 are available via the Threadlinqs MCP server (Purple tier). View plans →

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