CVE-2021-20315

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.1 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2022-02-18 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-667

Description

A locking protection bypass flaw was found in some versions of gnome-shell as shipped within CentOS Stream 8, when the "Application menu" or "Window list" GNOME extensions are enabled. This flaw allows a physical attacker who has access to a locked system to kill existing applications and start new ones as the locked user, even if the session is still locked.

Affected products

Centos Stream: 8
gnome-shell: before 3.32.2 — fixed in 3.32.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: gnome-shell 3.32.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2006285
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2006285

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