CVE-2021-29591
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedTensorFlow is an end-to-end open source platform for machine learning. TFlite graphs must not have loops between nodes. However, this condition was not checked and an attacker could craft models that would result in infinite loop during evaluation. In certain cases, the infinite loop would be replaced by stack overflow due to too many recursive calls. For example, the `While` implementation(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/106d8f4fb89335a2c52d7c895b7a7485465ca8d9/tensorflow/lite/kernels/while.cc) could be tricked into a scneario where both the body and the loop subgraphs are the same. Evaluating one of the subgraphs means calling the `Eval` function for the other and this quickly exhaust all stack space. 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. Please consult our security guide(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/master/SECURITY.md) for more information regarding the security model and how to contact us with issues and questions.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisCrafted input drives a loop whose exit condition is never satisfied, hanging the thread and starving the service of the resource it occupies. A single request can be enough to take a worker down. Remediation is bounding iteration counts and validating the conditions that are supposed to terminate the loop.
General guidance for the infinite loop class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data< 2.1.4>= 2.2.0, < 2.2.3>= 2.3.0, < 2.3.3>= 2.4.0, < 2.4.2CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor data2.1.42.2.32.3.3
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-29591 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-29591 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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