HarmonyosOperating system · Huawei

CVE-2021-37045

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-12-08
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2.0 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
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 an UAF vulnerability in Huawei Smartphone.Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may cause the device to restart unexpectedly and the kernel-mode code to be executed.

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 a use-after-free (UAF) vulnerability affecting Huawei smartphones. The vulnerability allows attackers to potentially execute kernel-mode code by exploiting the freed memory after it has been deallocated, leading to device restart and arbitrary code execution at the highest privilege level.

MitigationApply vendor-supplied firmware/security patches from Huawei as soon as they become available. If no patch exists, consider restricting network exposure and monitoring for indicators of compromise.

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
EmuiOperating system
Affected:= 10.1.0
Magic UiOperating system
Affected:= 3.1.0

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
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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. Identify your device OS variant
    Go to Settings > About Phone on your Huawei device and look for the OS name listed (either HarmonyOS, EMUI, or Magic UI)
    Affected if The device runs HarmonyOS, EMUI, or Magic UI - this vulnerability only affects these Huawei OS variants
  2. Check HarmonyOS version
    If your device runs HarmonyOS, go to Settings > About Phone > Version and note the build number. If the version is below 2.0 (such as 1.x), you are in the affected range
    Affected if HarmonyOS version is less than 2.0 (e.g., 1.5, 1.0)
  3. Check EMUI version
    If your device runs EMUI, go to Settings > About Phone > Version and verify if the EMUI version is exactly 10.1.0
    Affected if EMUI version equals 10.1.0 exactly
  4. Check Magic UI version
    If your device runs Magic UI, go to Settings > About Phone > Version and verify if the Magic UI version is exactly 3.1.0
    Affected if Magic UI version equals 3.1.0 exactly

Your device is affected if it runs HarmonyOS below version 2.0, EMUI version 10.1.0, or Magic UI version 3.1.0

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
Upgrade available Upgrade to 2.0 or later
Fixed in 2.0
Interim mitigation

Apply vendor-supplied firmware/security patches from Huawei as soon as they become available. If no patch exists, consider restricting network exposure and monitoring for indicators of compromise.

Fix this in Harmonyos Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation6.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA3.0 h
17.0 hours of engineering $3,000
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-37045 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-37045 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