Vulnerability · Published Aug 25, 2022 · Assigned by fedora
CVE-2021-42521
High 7.5
In plain English
A high-severity uncontrolled resource consumption in vtk. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 1.3% (higher than 71% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Severity (CVSS NVD)7.5High
Exploit odds (30 days)1.3%top 29.1% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsnot in CISA KEV
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known
Official description
There is a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in VTK before 9.2.5, and it lies in IO/Infovis/vtkXMLTreeReader.cxx. The vendor didn't check the return value of libxml2 API 'xmlDocGetRootElement', and try to dereference it. It is unsafe as the return value can be NULL and that NULL pointer dereference may crash the application.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:12 | vtk9 | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2021-42521 |
| Debian:13 | vtk9 | 9.1.0+really9.1.0+dfsg2-8 | DEBIAN-CVE-2021-42521 |
| Debian:14 | vtk9 | 9.1.0+really9.1.0+dfsg2-8 | DEBIAN-CVE-2021-42521 |
| PyPI | vtk | 9.0.1 | GHSA-xfhg-9pjg-xg7g |
| PyPI | vtk | 9.0.1 | PYSEC-2022-255 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | vtk7 | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2021-42521 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | vtk9 | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2021-42521 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | vtk9 | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2021-42521 |
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-400