HarmonyosOperating system · Huawei

CVE-2021-37003

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-11-23
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

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 · unedited
There is a Improper Input Validation vulnerability in Huawei Smartphone.Successful exploitation of this vulnerability will cause kernel crash.

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 confidence

This is an improper input validation vulnerability in the Huawei smartphone kernel. Successful exploitation allows an attacker to trigger a kernel crash through malformed input, resulting in denial of service. The vulnerability has a CVSS base score of 7.5 (HIGH), indicating significant impact on availability.

MitigationUsers should apply Huawei security updates/patches as they become available through the device's system update mechanism. Until a patch is applied, exposure can be minimized by avoiding untrusted applications and network connections.

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
HarmonyosOperating system
Affected:= 2.0

CVSS 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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Verify HarmonyOS version
    Go to Settings > About Phone > Version on your Huawei device, or run 'getprop ro.build.version.harmonyos' via ADB shell
    Affected if The version listed is exactly 2.0
  2. Check kernel version
    Run 'uname -r' or 'cat /proc/version' via ADB shell to retrieve the kernel version
    Affected if Kernel version corresponds to HarmonyOS 2.0 build
  3. Confirm device model is HarmonyOS-capable
    Check that the device is a Huawei model that ships with HarmonyOS (not EMUI/Android) by checking Settings > About Phone > Model
    Affected if Device runs HarmonyOS firmware rather than EMUI or standard Android
  4. Identify input validation trigger points
    The vulnerability is in kernel input validation - any malformed input processed by the kernel could trigger it. There is no specific feature to disable.
    Affected if Device is running the affected HarmonyOS 2.0 kernel without patches

A user is affected if their Huawei device runs HarmonyOS version 2.0 specifically, as this version contains the vulnerable kernel input validation code.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Users should apply Huawei security updates/patches as they become available through the device's system update mechanism. Until a patch is applied, exposure can be minimized by avoiding untrusted applications and network connections.

Fix this in Harmonyos Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Testing8.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
14.0 hours of engineering $2,360
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Scan for this in your stack

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-37003 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data