Reference page — cumulative record through Monday, October 19, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.

CVE-2021-3516

CVE-2021-3516HIGH

n/a libxml2 — There's a flaw in libxml2's xmllint in versions before 2.9.11.

  AV  AC  PR  UI  S  C  I  A   CVSS    EPSS   %ile   KEV
   L   L   N   R  U  H  H  H    7.8   .0204   80.8     —

AFFECTED
  Product  Versions          Fixed
  libxml2  libxml2 2.9.11 –  —

TIMELINE
  Apr 27  Reserved by redhat
  Jun 1   Published (CNA: redhat)
  Oct 14  ENRICHED — CVE-2021-3516 (libxml2). Received CVSS 7.8 and CPE data from NVD.
  Oct 14  EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2021-3516 (libxml2). Public exploit reference added.

CWE-416 · CNA: redhat · CVSS v3.1 · 10 references · NVD status: Modified

Description

There's a flaw in libxml2's xmllint in versions before 2.9.11. An attacker who is able to submit a crafted file to be processed by xmllint could trigger a use-after-free. The greatest impact of this flaw is to confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Lifecycle

Complete event history — 4 events, chronological
Date	Event	Detail
April 27, 2021	Reserved	Reserved by redhat
June 1, 2021	Published	Published (CNA: redhat)
October 14, 2026	ENRICHED	ENRICHED — CVE-2021-3516 (libxml2). Received CVSS 7.8 and CPE data from NVD.
October 14, 2026	EXPLOIT PUBLISHED	EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2021-3516 (libxml2). Public exploit reference added.

Affected

Affected products and packages — 1 row
Vendor	Product / Package	Ecosystem	Version introduced	Fixed
n/a	libxml2	—	libxml2 2.9.11	—

Weaknesses

CWE-416

References (10)

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1954225 [Issue Tracking, Third Party Advisory]
https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-398330.html
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2/-/commit/1358d157d0bd83be1dfe356a69213df9fac0b539 [Patch, Third Party Advisory]
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2/-/issues/230 [Exploit, Issue Tracking, Third Party Advisory]
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/05/msg00008.html [Mailing List, Third Party Advisory]
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/BZOMV5J4PMZAORVT64BKLV6YIZAFDGX6/
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/QVM4UJ3376I6ZVOYMHBNX4GY3NIV52WV/
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202107-05 [Third Party Advisory]
https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20210716-0005/ [Third Party Advisory]
https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujan2022.html [Patch, Third Party Advisory]

Authoritative record: CVE-2021-3516 at cve.org

Weaknesses: CWE-416

About this page

This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2021-3516 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Monday, October 19, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.