CVE-2021-38500 Memory corruption in Firefox

What is CVE-2021-38500?

CVE-2021-38500 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 3 Nov 2021. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

Mozilla developers reported memory safety bugs present in Firefox 92 and Firefox ESR 91.1. Some of these bugs showed evidence of memory corruption and we presume that with enough effort some of these could have been exploited to run arbitrary code. This vulnerability affects Thunderbird < 78.15, Thunderbird < 91.2, Firefox ESR < 91.2, Firefox ESR < 78.15, and Firefox < 93.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-38500?

It affects 4 products.

Products include Debian Debian Linux, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Firefox Esr, Mozilla Thunderbird.

How do I fix CVE-2021-38500?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.

Is CVE-2021-38500 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-38500 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux

• CVE-2015-3306 ProFTPD Improper Access Control Exploited Critical 10.0
• CVE-2025-49113 RoundCube Webmail Deserialization of Untrusted Data Exploited Critical 9.9
• CVE-2026-24061 GNU InetUtils Argument Injection Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2025-39682 Linux Kernel Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2024-9680 Mozilla Firefox Use-After-Free Exploited Critical 9.8

All Debian Debian Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2021-38500, GHSA-pv72-mgh4-jqvg, UBUNTU-CVE-2021-38500.