CVE-2021-32617 Denial of service in Exiv2
An attacker can cause a denial of service by tricking a user into writing metadata to a crafted image file using Exiv2.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- A user has to click or open something
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2021-32617?
CVE-2021-32617 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Exiv2 Exiv2, published on 17 May 2021. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Official description
Exiv2 is a command-line utility and C++ library for reading, writing, deleting, and modifying the metadata of image files. An inefficient algorithm (quadratic complexity) was found in Exiv2 versions v0.27.3 and earlier. The inefficient algorithm is triggered when Exiv2 is used to write metadata into a crafted image file. An attacker could potentially exploit the vulnerability to cause a denial of service, if they can trick the victim into running Exiv2 on a crafted image file. The bug is fixed in version v0.27.4. Note that this bug is only triggered when _writing_ the metadata, which is a less frequently used Exiv2 operation than _reading_ the metadata. For example, to trigger the bug in the Exiv2 command-line application, you need to add an extra command-line argument such as `rm`.
Weakness: CWE-400
Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-32617?
It affects 2 products.
Products include Exiv2 Exiv2, Fedoraproject Fedora.
How do I fix CVE-2021-32617?
Upgrade to a fixed version.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2021-32617 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-32617 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Exiv2 Exiv2
Sources
Also known as AZL-7213, CLEANSTART-2024-FB28550, DEBIAN-CVE-2021-32617, GHSA-w8mv-g8qq-36mj, UBUNTU-CVE-2021-32617.