# CVE-2021-23005: Weak cryptography in BIG-IQ

> Attackers can intercept high-availability failover traffic because BIG-IQ fails to use TLS for Corosync when a Quorum device is configured.

- **Severity:** Critical 9.1 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 31 Mar 2021
- **Updated:** 3 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-x5xq-4c5q-64fh

## What is CVE-2021-23005?

CVE-2021-23005 is a critical vulnerability in F5 Big-Iq Centralized Management, published on 31 Mar 2021. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

On all 7.x and 6.x versions (fixed in 8.0.0), when using a Quorum device for BIG-IQ high availability (HA) for automatic failover, BIG-IQ does not make use of Transport Layer Security (TLS) with the Corosync protocol. Note: Software versions which have reached End of Software Development (EoSD) are not evaluated.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-23005?

It affects 1 product.


Products: F5 Big-Iq Centralized Management.

## How do I fix CVE-2021-23005?

No fix has been published for CVE-2021-23005 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2021-23005 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-23005 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in F5 Big-Iq Centralized Management

- [CVE-2020-5868](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-5868/): Command injection in BIG-IQ (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2020-5869](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-5869/): Information disclosure in BIG-IQ (critical 9.1)
- [CVE-2020-5870](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-5870/): Missing authorization in BIG-IQ (high 8.1)
- [CVE-2021-22995](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-22995/): Missing authorization in BIG-IQ (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2021-22996](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-22996/): Denial of service in BIG-IQ (high 7.5)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2021-23005 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2021-23005 is a critical vulnerability in F5 Big-Iq Centralized Management, published on 31 Mar 2021. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-23005 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: F5 Big-Iq Centralized Management. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-23005/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-23005/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-23005
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-23005
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-23005

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-23005/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.