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High7.5Splunk

High [CVE-2021-3422] Splunk Enterprise: The lack of validation of a key-value field in the Splunk-to-Splunk protocol

This high-severity Splunk advisory covers CVE-2021-3422 affecting Splunk Enterprise, Universal Forwarder.

CVE-2021-3422 Published Mar 25, 2022Updated by vendor Jun 17, 2026
Affected products & platforms
SplunkSplunk EnterpriseUniversal Forwarder
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Summary

The lack of validation of a key-value field in the Splunk-to-Splunk protocol results in a denial-of-service in Splunk Enterprise instances configured to index Universal Forwarder traffic. The vulnerability impacts Splunk Enterprise versions before 7.3.9, 8.0 versions before 8.0.9, and 8.1 versions before 8.1.3.

It does not impact Universal Forwarders. When Splunk forwarding is secured using TLS or a Token, the attack requires compromising the certificate or token, or both.

Implementation of either or both reduces the severity to Medium.

Affected versions
  • 7.3.9
  • 8.0.9
  • 8.1.3

Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 2 months ago·verify at source

Fixed versions
  • 7.3.9
  • 8.0.9
  • 8.1.3

Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 2 months ago·verify at source

Mitigation

Upgrade to a fixed release: 7.3.9, 8.0.9, 8.1.3. That is the remediation for this advisory.

The vendor advisory may list additional interim mitigations or workarounds not captured here — review it before change work.

Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 2 months ago·verify at source

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