CVE-2021-3997
mediumA flaw was found in systemd.
Vendor / product: Systemd Project — systemd
A flaw was found in systemd. An uncontrolled recursion in systemd-tmpfiles may lead to a denial of service at boot time when too many nested directories are created in /tmp.
CVSS
5.5
5.5 (CVSS v3.1)
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Severity source: NVD CVSS v3.1 (nvd@nist.gov)
Timeline (UTC)
Published: 2022-08-23 20:15
Modified: 2026-11-02 19:17
NVD status: Modified
Last synced 1 day ago
Verified against the source API 2026-11-03 07:33 UTC
Exploitation
Not listed in CISA KEV (as of last catalog sync)
Absence from KEV does not mean a CVE is not exploited. Exploitation status: unknown (no authoritative evidence in our sources).
Affected products
systemd_project / systemd ≥240 <250.2
fedoraproject / fedora 34, 35
redhat / enterprise_linux 7.0, 8.0, 9.0
Weakness classification (CWE)
Source: NVD / CISA. “NVD-CWE-Other” and “NVD-CWE-noinfo” mean NVD could not assign a specific weakness.
Mitigation & advisories
Patch / mitigation: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2024639
Patch / mitigation: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/5b1cf7a9be37e20133c0208005274ce4a5b5c6a1
Patch / mitigation: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2024639
References
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-3997 secalert@redhat.com
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2024639 secalert@redhat.com
- https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/5b1cf7a9be37e20133c0208005274ce4a5b5c6a1 secalert@redhat.com
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202305-15 secalert@redhat.com
- https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2022/01/10/2 secalert@redhat.com
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-3997 af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2024639 af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
- https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/5b1cf7a9be37e20133c0208005274ce4a5b5c6a1 af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202305-15 af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
- https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2022/01/10/2 af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-398330.html 0b142b55-0307-4c5a-b3c9-f314f3fb7c5e
Data sources
NVD CVE API 2.0 — fetched 2026-11-03 07:33 UTC · record ↗