CVE-2024-21538VulnerabilityPublished 11 Feb 2025Updated 30 Oct 2026

Red Hat Security Advisory: RHTAS 1.1.1 - Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer Release

Affects Red HatSource GCVE Database

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Not known to be exploited.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 21:52 UTC

Severity

Low

Rated by Threat Radar · No CVSS score from NVD or the CNA

EPSS: 0.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 58% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 11 Feb 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 30 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

AI-suggested

Red Hat has not provided any specific mitigation steps in the advisory. Users should monitor Red Hat's advisories for updates and consider limiting access to affected components to trusted users to reduce risk. Since the vulnerability requires local access and high complexity, restricting user input and access controls may help mitigate exposure until a fix is released.

Description

CVE-2024-21538 is a Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability found in the cross-spawn package for Node.js. This flaw arises from improper input sanitization, allowing an attacker to cause increased CPU usage and potentially crash applications by supplying a large, specially crafted string. The vulnerability affects the Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer (RHTAS) Operator used with OpenShift Container Platform versions 4.14 through 4.17. Red Hat has classified this vulnerability as low severity and has not yet released a fix for it.

Impact

The impact of this vulnerability is a potential denial of service condition caused by high CPU usage when processing malicious input strings. There is no confidentiality, integrity, or data disclosure impact reported. The vulnerability requires local access with low privileges and high attack complexity, limiting the ease of exploitation. No active exploitation has been observed.

Summary

The vulnerability CVE-2024-21538 involves a ReDoS issue in the cross-spawn Node.js package due to inefficient regular expression handling (CWE-1333). An attacker can exploit this by providing a crafted input string that causes excessive CPU consumption, leading to denial of service. This affects the Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer (RHTAS) Operator compatible with OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 to 4.17. Red Hat's advisory notes the issue but does not list any fixes or patches currently available. The CVSS score assigned by Red Hat is 4.4 (low), reflecting a local attack vector with high attack complexity and low privileges required. No known exploits are reported in the wild.

CWE-1333Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: High
The product uses a regular expression with a worst-case computational complexity that is inefficient and possibly exponential.
Architecture and Design
Use regular expressions that do not support backtracking, e.g. by removing nested quantifiers.
System Configuration
Set backtracking limits in the configuration of the regular expression implementation, such as PHP's pcre.backtrack_limit. Also consider limits on execution time for the process.
Implementation
Do not use regular expressions with untrusted input. If regular expressions must be used, avoid using backtracking in the expression.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
File Upload (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.1.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Regular Expression Exponential Blowup (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 30 Oct 2026, 21:52 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-1333

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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