CVE-2021-41215 Null pointer exception in `DeserializeSparse`

What is CVE-2021-41215?

CVE-2021-41215 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Google Tensorflow, published on 5 Nov 2021. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

TensorFlow is an open source platform for machine learning. In affected versions the shape inference code for `DeserializeSparse` can trigger a null pointer dereference. This is because the shape inference function assumes that the `serialize_sparse` tensor is a tensor with positive rank (and having `3` as the last dimension). 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.

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-41215?

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-2021-41215?

Upgrade tensorflow to a fixed version for your release line: 2.4.4, 2.5.2, 2.6.1 or 2.7.0.

Is CVE-2021-41215 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-41215 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-2021-41215, GHSA-x3v8-c8qx-3j3r, PYSEC-2021-407, PYSEC-2021-624, PYSEC-2021-822.