Lua 2.1 End of Life Date
Lua 2.1 end-of-life date, support status, and CVE risk. Data reconciled from official vendor documentation and endoflife.date at every build; the source of each date is on the product page.
Lua 2.1 was released on February 7, 1995 and support ended on November 28, 1995 — a supported lifespan of 10 months, shorter than the 1 year median for Lua releases. The last patch it will ever receive is 2.1, published February 7, 1995 — 10 months before support ended. It has been without security patches for 30 years and 11 months. 12 newer Lua releases have shipped since.
Commercial vendors offer security patches beyond EOL. Compare your options.
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When Lua 2.1 reaches end of life, the maintainers stop issuing security patches for this version. CVEs discovered after the EOL date are publicly disclosed on the National Vulnerability Database with no patch available. Exploit code frequently appears on GitHub within days of disclosure.
The CVE blind spot: A CVE-based scan does not show the ongoing accumulation of unpatched vulnerabilities in EOL software versions. Some scanners flag unsupported versions of common products, but coverage varies, and none of them give you the date in advance. Running Lua 2.1 past its EOL date creates a growing attack surface that a clean scan result does not rule out.
Migrate to Lua 5.5 or implement compensating controls — network segmentation, enhanced monitoring, restricted access — while migration is underway.