No exploitation reportedFix available

CVE-2021-28398

Q: Is CVE-2021-28398 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2021-28398 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 1.4% on 2026-10-22, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

Q: What is the CVSS score for CVE-2021-28398?

CVE-2021-28398 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.2 (HIGH severity), with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

No exploitation reported by the sources we read.

Published2022-09-05
Fixed in4.0.4 · 3.12.0
WeaknessCWE-78

Am I affected?

With a domain, we read the version its public headers and pages expose. A distribution build can carry the fix under an older number.

Description

A privileged attacker in GeoNetwork before 3.12.0 and 4.x before 4.0.4 can use the directory harvester before-script to execute arbitrary OS commands remotely on the hosting infrastructure. A User Administrator or Administrator account is required to perform this. This occurs in the runBeforeScript method in harvesters/src/main/java/org/fao/geonet/kernel/harvest/harvester/localfilesystem/LocalFilesystemHarvester.java. The earliest affected version is 3.4.0.

Timeline

dates in UTC

2022-09-0517:15CVE publishedNVD

Observed activity

isMalicious corpus · updated 2026-10-23 21:37 UTC

Indicators tagged with this CVE, per day0 indicators over 7 days

Block these indicators

Firewall list (EDL, text): https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2021-28398?format=txt
CSV export: https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2021-28398?format=csv
TAXII collection of exploited CVEs
The EDL and CSV take an API key on the Pro plan.

Versions per branch

NVD

Osgeo geonetwork

Branch	Affected	Fixed in	Source
4.0	≥ 4.0.0, < 4.0.4	4.0.4	NVD
3.x	≥ 3.4.0, < 3.12.0	3.12.0	NVD
4.0	= 4.0.0	no fix published	NVD

as publishedRanges as NVD and OSV publish them; a distribution’s build can be fixed under an older number.

Fix

Update Osgeo geonetwork to 4.0.4 · 3.12.0

Advisories and patches

geonetwork-opensource.orgPatch · Release Notes · Vendor Advisory
github.comMitigation · Patch

Detection

Nuclei template: none so far
Exploit-DB: no entry
Proof-of-concept repositories: none listed

Sources

NVDCVSS 3.17.2read 2026-10-23
NVDweakness (CWE)CWE-78read 2026-10-23
FIRST EPSSEPSS score1.4 %2026-10-22

Technical details

CVSS v3 Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Published: 2022-09-05
Last Modified: 2026-06-17
NVD status: Modified

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-28398?

Is CVE-2021-28398 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2021-28398 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 1.4% on 2026-10-22, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2021-28398?

CVE-2021-28398 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.2 (HIGH severity), with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

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