CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-29567

Reachable Assertion

Published: May 14, 2021 | Modified: May 19, 2021
CVSS 3.x
5.5
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS 2.x
2.1 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

TensorFlow is an end-to-end open source platform for machine learning. Due to lack of validation in tf.raw_ops.SparseDenseCwiseMul, an attacker can trigger denial of service via CHECK-fails or accesses to outside the bounds of heap allocated data. Since the implementation(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/38178a2f7a681a7835bb0912702a134bfe3b4d84/tensorflow/core/kernels/sparse_dense_binary_op_shared.cc#L68-L80) only validates the rank of the input arguments but no constraints between dimensions(https://www.tensorflow.org/api_docs/python/tf/raw_ops/SparseDenseCwiseMul), an attacker can abuse them to trigger internal CHECK assertions (and cause program termination, denial of service) or to write to memory outside of bounds of heap allocated tensor buffers. The fix will be included in TensorFlow 2.5.0. We will also cherrypick this commit on TensorFlow 2.4.2, TensorFlow 2.3.3, TensorFlow 2.2.3 and TensorFlow 2.1.4, as these are also affected and still in supported range.

Weakness

The product contains an assert() or similar statement that can be triggered by an attacker, which leads to an application exit or other behavior that is more severe than necessary.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Tensorflow Google * 2.1.4 (excluding)
Tensorflow Google 2.2.0 (including) 2.2.3 (excluding)
Tensorflow Google 2.3.0 (including) 2.3.3 (excluding)
Tensorflow Google 2.4.0 (including) 2.4.2 (excluding)

Extended Description

While assertion is good for catching logic errors and reducing the chances of reaching more serious vulnerability conditions, it can still lead to a denial of service. For example, if a server handles multiple simultaneous connections, and an assert() occurs in one single connection that causes all other connections to be dropped, this is a reachable assertion that leads to a denial of service.

Potential Mitigations

References