Parse DurationApplication · Parse Duration Project
CVE-2021-29932
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 · uneditedAn issue was discovered in the parse_duration crate through 2021-03-18 for Rust. It allows attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU and memory consumption) via a duration string with a large exponent.
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 analysis · moderate confidenceThe parse_duration Rust crate through early 2021 has a denial of service vulnerability where parsing a duration string containing a large exponent value causes excessive CPU and memory consumption, potentially exhausting system resources.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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
Parse DurationApplication
<= 2021-03-18CVSS 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
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify parse_duration crate usageSearch your project dependencies (Cargo.toml, Cargo.lock) for the 'parse_duration' crate and note the version numberAffected if parse_duration crate version is present and dated 2021-03-18 or earlier
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Check dependency chain for parse_durationRun 'cargo tree -p parse_duration' to see if parse_duration is a direct or transitive dependency, and review the exact version resolved in Cargo.lockAffected if The resolved version in Cargo.lock corresponds to a release on or before March 18, 2021
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Verify user input reaches parse_durationSearch codebase for calls to parse_duration::parse or similar functions and trace whether the input string originates from user sources (HTTP requests, CLI arguments, files)Affected if User-controlled strings are passed directly to parse_duration without preprocessing
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Inspect input patterns for exponent valuesReview sample input data or logs for duration strings containing 'e' or 'E' characters followed by numbers, which trigger the exponent parsing code pathAffected if The application processes duration strings with scientific notation exponents from untrusted sources
Your environment is affected if parse_duration crate version 2021-03-18 or earlier is in your dependency tree AND untrusted user input containing large exponent values can reach the parser.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataUpdate the parse_duration crate to a patched version, or implement input validation to reject duration strings with unreasonably large exponents before passing them to the parser.
Fix this in Parse Duration
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,224.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-29932 — 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-2021-29932 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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