HurdApplication · Gnu

CVE-2021-43412

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-11-07
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 0.9.20210404-9 or later.
See remediation →
80/100
Remediation priority · High
Public exploit 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
An issue was discovered in GNU Hurd before 0.9 20210404-9. libports accepts fake notification messages from any client on any port, which can lead to port use-after-free. This can be exploited for local privilege escalation to get full root access.

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
How this class of weakness works · CWE-416

Memory is used after it has been freed, so its contents — now potentially attacker-controlled — drive the program's behaviour. With careful heap grooming this becomes code execution. The fix requires disciplined ownership of memory and often a targeted rework of the object lifecycle.

General guidance for the use after free 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
HurdApplication
Affected:< 0.9.20210404-9

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
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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 0.9.20210404-9 or later
Fixed in 0.9.20210404-9
Recommended fix High confidence

0.9.20210404-9 or later

  1. Verify current Hurd version using 'hurd version' or '/usr/bin/hurd version'
  2. Upgrade Hurd to version 0.9.20210404-9 or later using your distribution's package manager
  3. After upgrade, reboot or restart the Hurd system to load the fixed libports library
  4. Verify the fix is applied by checking the installed version matches or exceeds 0.9.20210404-9
Caveat Minor: Upgrading the Hurd kernel and its libraries may require system downtime and could affect running translators or processes that depend on libports

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

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $3,200. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

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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-2021-43412 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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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
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