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Fencer Intel
medium 6.5

CVE-2021-29481 json

Client side sessions should not allow unencrypted storage

published 5y ago modified 4mo ago also GHSA-phj8-4cq3-794g , EUVD-2021-1484

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 39%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Ratpack is a toolkit for creating web applications. In versions prior to 1.9.0, the default configuration of client side sessions results in unencrypted, but signed, data being set as cookie values. This means that if something sensitive goes into the session, it could be read by something with access to the cookies. For this to be a vulnerability, some kind of sensitive data would need to be stored in the session and the session cookie would have to leak. For example, the cookies are not configured with httpOnly and an adjacent XSS vulnerability within the site allowed capture of the cookies. As of version 1.9.0, a securely randomly generated signing key is used. As a workaround, one may supply an encryption key, as per the documentation recommendation.

Patch / fix

  • maven io.ratpack:ratpack-session 1.9.0
  • ratpack_project ratpack 1.9.0

Is CVE-2021-29481 in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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Exploit prediction

0.46% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 39% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
GitHub 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
maven io.ratpack:ratpack-session
<1.9.0
1.9.0

Affected products

  • ratpack ratpack

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-312 Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.