CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-30980

Use After Free

Published: Aug 24, 2021 | Modified: Nov 07, 2023
CVSS 3.x
7.8
HIGH
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.x
9.3 HIGH
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

A use after free issue was addressed with improved memory management. This issue is fixed in macOS Big Sur 11.6.2, tvOS 15.2, macOS Monterey 12.1, Security Update 2021-008 Catalina, iOS 15.2 and iPadOS 15.2, watchOS 8.3. An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.

Weakness

Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Ipados Apple * 15.2 (excluding)
Iphone_os Apple * 15.2 (excluding)
Mac_os_x Apple 10.15 (including) 10.15.7 (excluding)
Mac_os_x Apple 10.15.7 (including) 10.15.7 (including)
Mac_os_x Apple 10.15.7-security_update_2020-001 (including) 10.15.7-security_update_2020-001 (including)
Mac_os_x Apple 10.15.7-security_update_2021-001 (including) 10.15.7-security_update_2021-001 (including)
Mac_os_x Apple 10.15.7-security_update_2021-002 (including) 10.15.7-security_update_2021-002 (including)
Mac_os_x Apple 10.15.7-security_update_2021-003 (including) 10.15.7-security_update_2021-003 (including)
Mac_os_x Apple 10.15.7-security_update_2021-004 (including) 10.15.7-security_update_2021-004 (including)
Mac_os_x Apple 10.15.7-security_update_2021-005 (including) 10.15.7-security_update_2021-005 (including)
Mac_os_x Apple 10.15.7-security_update_2021-006 (including) 10.15.7-security_update_2021-006 (including)
Mac_os_x Apple 10.15.7-security_update_2021-007 (including) 10.15.7-security_update_2021-007 (including)
Mac_os_x Apple 10.15.7-supplemental_update (including) 10.15.7-supplemental_update (including)
Macos Apple 11.0 (including) 11.6.2 (excluding)
Macos Apple 12.0 (including) 12.1 (excluding)
Tvos Apple * 15.2 (excluding)
Watchos Apple * 8.3 (excluding)

Extended Description

The use of previously-freed memory can have any number of adverse consequences, ranging from the corruption of valid data to the execution of arbitrary code, depending on the instantiation and timing of the flaw. The simplest way data corruption may occur involves the system’s reuse of the freed memory. Use-after-free errors have two common and sometimes overlapping causes:

In this scenario, the memory in question is allocated to another pointer validly at some point after it has been freed. The original pointer to the freed memory is used again and points to somewhere within the new allocation. As the data is changed, it corrupts the validly used memory; this induces undefined behavior in the process. If the newly allocated data happens to hold a class, in C++ for example, various function pointers may be scattered within the heap data. If one of these function pointers is overwritten with an address to valid shellcode, execution of arbitrary code can be achieved.

Potential Mitigations

References