Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
Older Teleport releases had a flaw that could allow SSH host certificate forgery in some situations. That can undermine trust in server identity during SSH access. The public bundle does not provide severity, exploit prerequisites, or confirmed exploitation, so urgency depends on whether affected Teleport versions are deployed.
Executive priority
Prioritize remediation where Teleport protects privileged infrastructure access. Even without confirmed exploitation, host certificate forgery can affect trust in administrative SSH workflows.
Technical view
CVE-2021-41393 affects Teleport before 4.4.11, 5.x before 5.2.4, 6.x before 6.2.12, and 7.x before 7.1.1. The issue is described as SSH host certificate forgery in some situations. The source bundle provides no CVSS, CWE, proof-of-concept, or detailed attack conditions.
Likely exposure
Exposure is likely limited to organizations running affected Teleport versions, especially where Teleport manages SSH access and host certificate trust. Exact vulnerable configurations are not described in the provided sources.
Exploitation context
The provided sources do not state active exploitation or public exploit availability, and the CVE is not marked as CISA KEV. Treat exploitation status as unconfirmed, not absent.
Researcher notes
Evidence is sparse. The key research need is determining the exact “some situations” condition from vendor commits or advisories. Avoid assuming affected configurations beyond the versions named in the CVE description.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade Teleport 4.4 deployments to 4.4.11 or later.
- Upgrade Teleport 5.x deployments to 5.2.4 or later.
- Upgrade Teleport 6.x deployments to 6.2.12 or later.
- Upgrade Teleport 7.x deployments to 7.1.1 or later.
- Check Teleport vendor guidance for any additional operational recommendations.
Validation and detection
- Inventory Teleport versions across production, staging, and administrative access systems.
- Confirm no deployment runs below the fixed release for its major version.
- Review Teleport release notes for the applicable fixed branch.
- Verify SSH access paths use expected trusted host certificate authorities.
- Check security monitoring for unusual SSH host identity or access anomalies.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CVE-2021-41393 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Unknown
- CVSS
- Not scored
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS and timeline data
No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://github.com/gravitational/teleport/releases/tag/v4.4.11CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/gravitational/teleport/releases/tag/v5.2.4CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/gravitational/teleport/releases/tag/v6.2.12CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/gravitational/teleport/releases/tag/v7.1.1CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.