CVE-2021-22986 — F5 BIG-IP and BIG-IQ Centralized Management iControl REST Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Overview
F5 BIG-IP and BIG-IQ Centralized Management contain a remote code execution vulnerability in the iControl REST interface that allows unauthenticated attackers with network access to execute system commands, create or delete files, and disable services.
Vulnerability details
- CVE ID
- CVE-2021-22986
- Vulnerability
- F5 BIG-IP and BIG-IQ Centralized Management iControl REST Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
- Vendor
- F5
- Affected products
- F5: BIG-IP and BIG-IQ Centralized Management
- Severity
- HIGH
- Exploitation status
- Actively exploited in the wild (CISA KEV)
- Published
- 2021-11-03
Remediation guidance
CVE-2021-22986 is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog — U.S. federal civilian agencies are required to remediate it under Binding Operational Directive 22-01. Treat it as a priority for every environment.
Apply the vendor's official security update for F5 the affected product as soon as possible. Where a patch is unavailable, apply vendor mitigations or isolate/segment exposed systems.
Hunt for indicators of compromise tied to this vulnerability and confirm logging/EDR coverage on affected assets.
Authoritative references
Remediate CVE-2021-22986 — and stay ahead of the next one
CVE-2021-22986 is listed in the CISA KEV catalog as actively exploited — treat remediation as urgent. Scan your domain free to see whether CVE-2021-22986 and other F5 issues affect you and get a prioritized remediation report (full report from ₹999) — or stream the full feed of 1,600+ actively-exploited CVEs straight into your SOC.
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