CVE-2021-37641 Heap OOB in `RaggedGather` in TensorFlow

What is CVE-2021-37641?

CVE-2021-37641 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Google Tensorflow, published on 12 Aug 2021. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

TensorFlow is an end-to-end open source platform for machine learning. In affected versions if the arguments to `tf.raw_ops.RaggedGather` don't determine a valid ragged tensor code can trigger a read from outside of bounds of heap allocated buffers. The [implementation](https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/8d72537c6abf5a44103b57b9c2e22c14f5f49698/tensorflow/core/kernels/ragged_gather_op.cc#L70) directly reads the first dimension of a tensor shape before checking that said tensor has rank of at least 1 (i.e., it is not a scalar). Furthermore, the implementation does not check that the list given by `params_nested_splits` is not an empty list of tensors. We have patched the issue in GitHub commit a2b743f6017d7b97af1fe49087ae15f0ac634373. The fix will be included in TensorFlow 2.6.0. We will also cherrypick this commit on TensorFlow 2.5.1, TensorFlow 2.4.3, and TensorFlow 2.3.4, as these are also affected and still in supported range.

Weakness: CWE-125

Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-37641?

22 open source packages ship an affected version, including tensorflow, tensorflow-cpu and tensorflow-gpu. It affects 1 product.

Products include Google Tensorflow.

How do I fix CVE-2021-37641?

Upgrade tensorflow to a fixed version for your release line: 2.3.4, 2.4.3 or 2.5.1.

Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.

Is CVE-2021-37641 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-37641 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Google Tensorflow

• CVE-2023-25668 TensorFlow vulnerable to heap out-of-buffer read in the QuantizeAndDequantize operation Critical 9.8
• CVE-2018-7575 Integer Overflow or Wraparound in Google TensorFlow Critical 9.8
• CVE-2021-37678 Arbitrary code execution due to YAML deserialization Critical 9.3
• CVE-2021-35958 Path traversal in n/a Critical 9.1
• CVE-2020-15202 Integer truncation in Shard API usage Critical 9.0

All Google Tensorflow vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BIT-tensorflow-2021-37641, GHSA-9c8h-vvrj-w2p8, PYSEC-2021-263, PYSEC-2021-554, PYSEC-2021-752.