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GHSA-57wx-m983-2f88 BIT-tensorflow-2021-41208 CVE-2021-41208 PYSEC-2021-400 PYSEC-2021-617 PYSEC-2021-815

Incomplete validation in boosted trees code

Critical PyPI
Severity
9.3 / 10
Critical · CVSS 3.1
Exploit chance (EPSS)
0.17%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 6.79% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited
No
Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness
CWE-476 NULL Pointer Dereference
CWE-824 Access of Uninitialized Pointer
Fix
Available
3 packages have a fixed version

Description

Impact

The code for boosted trees in TensorFlow is still missing validation. As a result, attackers can trigger denial of service (via dereferencing nullptrs or via CHECK-failures) as well as abuse undefined behavior (binding references to nullptrs). An attacker can also read and write from heap buffers, depending on the API that gets used and the arguments that are passed to the call.

Note: Given that the boosted trees implementation in TensorFlow is unmaintained, it is recommend to no longer use these APIs. Instead, please use the downstream TensorFlow Decision Forests project which is newer and supports more features. We will deprecate TensorFlow's boosted trees APIs in subsequent releases.

Patches

We have patched the issue in GitHub commit 5c8c9a8bfe750f9743d0c859bae112060b216f5c.

The fix will be included in TensorFlow 2.7.0. We will also cherrypick this commit on TensorFlow 2.6.1, TensorFlow 2.5.2, and TensorFlow 2.4.4, as these are also affected and still in supported range.

For more information

Please consult our security guide for more information regarding the security model and how to contact us with issues and questions.

Attribution

This vulnerability has been reported by members of the Aivul Team from Qihoo 360.

Affected versions

PyPI

PackageVulnerableFixed in
tensorflow
>= 2.6.0, < 2.6.1
2.6.1
tensorflow
>= 2.5.0, < 2.5.2
2.5.2
tensorflow
< 2.4.4
2.4.4
tensorflow
< 2.4.4
>= 2.5.0, < 2.5.2
>= 2.6.0, < 2.6.1
>= 2.7.0rc0, < 2.7.0
2.4.4
2.5.2
2.6.1
2.7.0
tensorflow-cpu
>= 2.6.0, < 2.6.1
2.6.1
tensorflow-cpu
>= 2.5.0, < 2.5.2
2.5.2
tensorflow-cpu
< 2.4.4
2.4.4
tensorflow-cpu
< 2.4.4
>= 2.5.0, < 2.5.2
>= 2.6.0, < 2.6.1
>= 2.7.0rc0, < 2.7.0
2.4.4
2.5.2
2.6.1
2.7.0
tensorflow-gpu
>= 2.6.0, < 2.6.1
2.6.1
tensorflow-gpu
>= 2.5.0, < 2.5.2
2.5.2
tensorflow-gpu
< 2.4.4
2.4.4
tensorflow-gpu
< 2.4.4
>= 2.5.0, < 2.5.2
>= 2.6.0, < 2.6.1
>= 2.7.0rc0, < 2.7.0
2.4.4
2.5.2
2.6.1
2.7.0

How to fix

Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.

tensorflow PyPI → 2.6.1

pip
pip install --upgrade "tensorflow>=2.6.1"
poetry
poetry add "tensorflow>=2.6.1"
uv
uv add "tensorflow>=2.6.1"

tensorflow-cpu PyPI → 2.6.1

pip
pip install --upgrade "tensorflow-cpu>=2.6.1"
poetry
poetry add "tensorflow-cpu>=2.6.1"
uv
uv add "tensorflow-cpu>=2.6.1"

tensorflow-gpu PyPI → 2.6.1

pip
pip install --upgrade "tensorflow-gpu>=2.6.1"
poetry
poetry add "tensorflow-gpu>=2.6.1"
uv
uv add "tensorflow-gpu>=2.6.1"

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.1 9.3

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack vector
Local
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Weakness

CWE-476: NULL Pointer Dereference

The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.

How to prevent it
  • Implementation: For any pointers that could have been modified or provided from a function that can return NULL, check the pointer for NULL before use. When working with a multithreaded or otherwise asynchronous environment, ensure that proper locking APIs are used to lock before the check, and unlock when it has finished [REF-1484].
  • Requirements: Select a programming language that is not susceptible to these issues.
  • Implementation: Check the results of all functions that return a value and verify that the value is non-null before acting upon it.
  • Architecture and Design: Identify all variables and data stores that receive information from external sources, and apply input validation to make sure that they are only initialized to expected values.
  • Implementation: Explicitly initialize all variables and other data stores, either during declaration or just before the first usage.

CWE-824: Access of Uninitialized Pointer

The product accesses or uses a pointer that has not been initialized.

References

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. Last updated by the source
  3. Latest EPSS score
AdvisorySeverityWhy it's related
GHSA-gjh7-xx4r-x345
TensorFlow has segfault in array_ops.upper_bound
High Also affects tensorflow
GHSA-fxgc-95xx-grvq
TensorFlow Denial of Service vulnerability
Medium Also affects tensorflow
GHSA-93vr-9q9m-pj8p
TensorFlow vulnerable to Out-of-Bounds Read in DynamicStitch
High Also affects tensorflow
GHSA-qjqc-vqcf-5qvj
TensorFlow vulnerable to seg fault in `tf.raw_ops.Print`
High Also affects tensorflow
GHSA-7jvm-xxmr-v5cw
TensorFlow vulnerable to integer overflow in EditDistance
High Also affects tensorflow
GHSA-64jg-wjww-7c5w
TensorFlow has Null Pointer Error in TensorArrayConcatV2
High Also affects tensorflow
GHSA-6hg6-5c2q-7rcr
TensorFlow has Heap-buffer-overflow in AvgPoolGrad
High Also affects tensorflow
GHSA-558h-mq8x-7q9g
TensorFlow has Null Pointer Error in SparseSparseMaximum
High Also affects tensorflow
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