CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-26948

Signal Handler Use of a Non-reentrant Function

Published: Mar 03, 2022 | Modified: Nov 21, 2024
CVSS 3.x
7.8
HIGH
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.x
6.8 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

Null pointer dereference in the htmldoc v1.9.11 and before may allow attackers to execute arbitrary code and cause a denial of service via a crafted html file.

Weakness

The product defines a signal handler that calls a non-reentrant function.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Htmldoc Htmldoc_project 1.9.11 (including) 1.9.11 (including)
Htmldoc Ubuntu bionic *
Htmldoc Ubuntu esm-apps/bionic *
Htmldoc Ubuntu esm-apps/focal *
Htmldoc Ubuntu esm-apps/xenial *
Htmldoc Ubuntu esm-infra-legacy/trusty *
Htmldoc Ubuntu focal *
Htmldoc Ubuntu groovy *
Htmldoc Ubuntu hirsute *
Htmldoc Ubuntu impish *
Htmldoc Ubuntu kinetic *
Htmldoc Ubuntu lunar *
Htmldoc Ubuntu mantic *
Htmldoc Ubuntu trusty *
Htmldoc Ubuntu trusty/esm *
Htmldoc Ubuntu upstream *
Htmldoc Ubuntu xenial *

Extended Description

Non-reentrant functions are functions that cannot safely be called, interrupted, and then recalled before the first call has finished without resulting in memory corruption. This can lead to an unexpected system state and unpredictable results with a variety of potential consequences depending on context, including denial of service and code execution. Many functions are not reentrant, but some of them can result in the corruption of memory if they are used in a signal handler. The function call syslog() is an example of this. In order to perform its functionality, it allocates a small amount of memory as “scratch space.” If syslog() is suspended by a signal call and the signal handler calls syslog(), the memory used by both of these functions enters an undefined, and possibly, exploitable state. Implementations of malloc() and free() manage metadata in global structures in order to track which memory is allocated versus which memory is available, but they are non-reentrant. Simultaneous calls to these functions can cause corruption of the metadata.

Potential Mitigations

References