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Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2021-3912

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-11-11
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 1.3.0 or later.
See remediation →
72/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges

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
OctoRPKI tries to load the entire contents of a repository in memory, and in the case of a GZIP bomb, unzip it in memory, making it possible to create a repository that makes OctoRPKI run out of memory (and thus 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

OctoRPKI is vulnerable to a GZIP bomb attack where a malicious RPKI repository contains highly compressed data that expands to an enormous size when decompressed in memory. The application attempts to load entire repository contents into memory before decompression, causing memory exhaustion and crash.

MitigationImplement streaming/chunked processing for repository data instead of loading entire files into memory, and add decompression ratio limits or maximum file size thresholds to reject overly compressed payloads.

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
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 11.0
OctorpkiApplication
Affected:< 1.3.0

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
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/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. Check if OctoRPKI is installed
    Run 'which octorpki' or check your package manager for installed packages containing 'octorpki' or 'octo'
    Affected if OctoRPKI is present on the system
  2. Determine the installed OctoRPKI version
    Run 'octorpki --version' or check the package version via your package manager (e.g., 'dpkg -l | grep octorpki' on Debian)
    Affected if Version is less than 1.3.0 (for Cloudflare Octorpki) or running on Debian 11.0 with the packaged version
  3. Check the operating system version
    Run 'cat /etc/os-release' or 'lsb_release -a' to identify the Debian version
    Affected if Running Debian 11.0 with OctoRPKI installed from Debian packages
  4. Identify if RPKI repository processing is enabled
    Review the OctoRPKI configuration files or command-line arguments to confirm the application fetches and processes RPKI repository data
    Affected if The application is configured to fetch and decompress RPKI repository contents from remote sources

You are affected if OctoRPKI is installed with version less than 1.3.0 on Debian 11.0 and is configured to process RPKI repository data, as this combination allows a GZIP bomb to be decompressed entirely in memory.

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 1.3.0 or later
Fixed in 1.3.0
Interim mitigation

Implement streaming/chunked processing for repository data instead of loading entire files into memory, and add decompression ratio limits or maximum file size thresholds to reject overly compressed payloads.

Recommended fix Moderate confidence

Octorpki version 1.3.0 or later

  1. 1. Identify the current installed version of Octorpki using 'octorpki --version' or checking the package manager
  2. 2. For Debian 11.0 systems, check if Octorpki 1.3.0 is available via 'apt-cache policy octorpki' or by running 'apt update' followed by 'apt-cache policy octorpki'
  3. 3. If version 1.3.0 is available in Debian repositories, upgrade using 'apt-get install octorpki'
  4. 4. If 1.3.0 is not yet in Debian repositories, download Octorpki version 1.3.0 or later from the official GitHub repository (github.com) and install according to project documentation
  5. 5. Verify the upgrade was successful by checking the installed version

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Debian Linux Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
13.0 hours of engineering $2,290
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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-2021-3912 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