critical Known exploitedREV. 01

CVE-2021-34523ProxyShell — Exchange Management Service Privilege Escalation

Microsoft Exchange lets a request reach its management service with elevated rights — the middle link of the ProxyShell chain that ends in code execution on the mail server.

YOUR NEXT MOVE

Apply Microsoft's Exchange security update, then hunt for web shells; this chain was mass-exploited.

Read the risk

THE VITAL STATS
CVSS score
9.8/ 10
CVSS v3.1
EPSS probability
100%
Likelihood of exploitation
Attack complexity
Low
Conditions needed to exploit
Known exploited
Yes — CISA KEV
CVE published
2021-07-14
Added to KEV
2021-11-03
Exploit published
Yes
Confidence
medium
Kill chain
privilege escalation
MITRE ATT&CK
T1068
Severity
critical

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attacker needsNetwork access to the Exchange web endpoint

Behind the card

5 REFERENCES
Field-level provenanceTRACE THE SOURCES +

Which source supports each field, when it was retrieved, and who extracted it.

FieldsSourceRetrievedExtractorConfidence
cvss, exploitation.attack_complexity, exploitation.exploit_available, references, published_atnvd.nist.gov2026-08-07scrty-crds-pipeline/0.1high
exploitation.known_exploited, exploitation.kev_addedcisa.gov2026-08-07scrty-crds-pipeline/0.1high
epssapi.first.org2026-08-07scrty-crds-pipeline/0.1high
title, summary, severity, remediation, mitre_attack, kill_chain, recommended_action, confidence, tags, exploitation.prerequisitesnvd.nist.gov2026-08-07claude-codehigh

Printing history

THE RECORD
  1. r1Initial base card

First printing. This card has not been reprinted since publication.

crds:cve-2021-34523 · CRDS 0.1 · Issued 2026-08-07