CVE-2021-36036

CRITICAL

Magento improper access control vulnerability within Magento's Media Gallery Upload workflow

Published September 6, 2023Updated November 6, 2025Source: osv

Summary

Magento versions 2.4.2 (and earlier), 2.4.2-p1 (and earlier) and 2.3.7 (and earlier) are affected by an improper access control vulnerability within Magento's Media Gallery Upload workflow. By storing a specially crafted file in the website gallery, an authenticated attacker with administrative privilege can gain access to delete the .htaccess file. This could result in the attacker achieving remote code execution.

Remediation

Upgrade to the fixed version using your package manager.

Composer

Update magento/community-edition to 2.3.7-p1 or later

composer require "magento/community-edition:^2.3.7-p1"

Composer

Update magento/community-edition to 2.4.2-p2 or later

composer require "magento/community-edition:^2.4.2-p2"

After upgrading, run your dependency scanner again to confirm the vulnerability is resolved.

Affected Packages (5)

Package	Ecosystem	Affected	Fixed In
magento/community-edition	packagist	2.3.7	No fix available
magento/community-edition	packagist	2.4.2	No fix available
magento/project-community-edition	packagist	0.1.0-alpha100, 0.1.0-alpha101, 0.1.0-alpha102, 0.1.0-alpha103 (+49 more)	Range-based data available
magento/community-edition	packagist	0.1.0-alpha100, 0.1.0-alpha101, 0.1.0-alpha102, 0.1.0-alpha103 (+118 more)	2.3.7-p1
magento/community-edition	packagist	2.4.2-p1	2.4.2-p2

Vulnerability Classification

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) identifiers for this vulnerability type.

CWE-284
View on MITRE

CVSS Score Breakdown

What the CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) 9.1 score means for each attack dimension.

Attack Vector

Network

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

High

User Interaction

None

Scope

Changed

Confidentiality

High

Integrity

High

Availability

High

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

References

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2021-36036?: Magento improper access control vulnerability within Magento's Media Gallery Upload workflow This vulnerability has been assigned a severity rating of CRITICAL (CVSS score: 9.1/10).
How do I check if my project is affected by CVE-2021-36036?: CVE-2021-36036 affects magento/community-edition and magento/project-community-edition. Use GeekWala's free vulnerability scanner to check your dependencies against CVE-2021-36036 and 200,000+ other known vulnerabilities.

Severity & Exploitability

CVSS Score

9.1

Exploitation is straightforward and causes maximum impact. Patch immediately.

Also Known As

GHSA-wqr6-wv6c-p8fx

BIT-magento-2021-36036

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