CVEvulnerability
CVE-2021-29531
5.5 MEDIUM
Official page ↗
- Status
- Modified
- Published
- 2021-05-14
- Last modified
- 2026-06-17
- Assigner
- [email protected]
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 2.5 LOW — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 5.5 MEDIUM — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CVSS 2.0 ([email protected])
- 2.1 LOW — AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
- Weaknesses
- CWE-754
Description
TensorFlow is an end-to-end open source platform for machine learning. An attacker can trigger a `CHECK` fail in PNG encoding by providing an empty input tensor as the pixel data. This is because the implementation(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/e312e0791ce486a80c9d23110841525c6f7c3289/tensorflow/core/kernels/image/encode_png_op.cc#L57-L60) only validates that the total number of pixels in the image does not overflow. Thus, an attacker can send an empty matrix for encoding. However, if the tensor is empty, then the associated buffer is `nullptr`. Hence, when calling `png::WriteImageToBuffer`(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/e312e0791ce486a80c9d23110841525c6f7c3289/tensorflow/core/kernels/image/encode_png_op.cc#L79-L93), the first argument (i.e., `image.flat<T>().data()`) is `NULL`. This then triggers the `CHECK_NOTNULL` in the first line of `png::WriteImageToBuffer`(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/e312e0791ce486a80c9d23110841525c6f7c3289/tensorflow/core/lib/png/png_io.cc#L345-L349). Since `image` is null, this results in `abort` being called after printing the stacktrace. Effectively, this allows an attacker to mount a denial of service attack. The fix will be included in TensorFlow 2.5.0. We will also cherrypick this commit on TensorFlow 2.4.2, TensorFlow 2.3.3, TensorFlow 2.2.3 and TensorFlow 2.1.4, as these are also affected and still in supported range.
Affected configurations
• google tensorflow (< 2.1.4)
• google tensorflow (>= 2.2.0 < 2.2.3)
• google tensorflow (>= 2.3.0 < 2.3.3)
• google tensorflow (>= 2.4.0 < 2.4.2)
Related
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-754 Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions weakness
References
- https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/commit/26eb323554ffccd173e8a79a8c05c15b685ae4d1 Patch, Third Party Advisory
- https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/security/advisories/GHSA-3qxp-qjq7-w4hf Exploit, Patch, Third Party Advisory
- https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/commit/26eb323554ffccd173e8a79a8c05c15b685ae4d1 Patch, Third Party Advisory
- https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/security/advisories/GHSA-3qxp-qjq7-w4hf Exploit, Patch, Third Party Advisory