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Robot Operating SystemOperating system · Openrobotics

CVE-2024-41921

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-07-17
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
81/100
Remediation priority · High
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
A code injection vulnerability has been discovered in the Robot Operating System (ROS) 'rostopic' command-line tool, affecting ROS distributions Noetic Ninjemys and earlier. The vulnerability lies in the 'echo' verb, which allows a user to introspect a ROS topic and accepts a user-provided Python expression via the --filter option. This input is passed directly to the eval() function without sanitization, allowing a local user to craft and execute arbitrary code.

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 · high confidence

The ROS 'rostopic' tool's echo verb passes the --filter option input directly to Python's eval() without sanitization, allowing local users to execute arbitrary code via crafted Python expressions.

MitigationReplace eval() with a safe evaluation method such as ast.literal_eval() for simple expressions, or implement a restricted sandbox/allowlist for permitted operations while preserving the tool's legitimate introspection capabilities.

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
Robot Operating SystemOperating system
Affected:= indigo_igloo= kinetic_kame= melodic_morenia= noetic_ninjemys

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
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/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 ROS distribution version
    Run 'rosversion -d' or check /opt/ros/*/setup.bash for the distribution name
    Affected if The output is one of: indigo_igloo, kinetic_kame, melodic_morenia, or noetic_ninjemys
  2. Verify rostopic tool is installed
    Run 'which rostopic' or 'rostopic -h'
    Affected if The rostopic command executes and shows help output
  3. Confirm the --filter option exists
    Run 'rostopic echo --help' and look for --filter in the options list
    Affected if The --filter option is present in the help output
  4. Check if --filter is actually being used in your environment
    Search your scripts, launch files, or command history for usages of 'rostopic echo --filter'
    Affected if You find active use of --filter with rostopic echo

Your environment is affected if you are running any of the four listed ROS distributions (indigo_igloo, kinetic_kame, melodic_morenia, noetic_ninjemys) AND the rostopic tool with the --filter option is installed and in use.

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

Replace eval() with a safe evaluation method such as ast.literal_eval() for simple expressions, or implement a restricted sandbox/allowlist for permitted operations while preserving the tool's legitimate introspection capabilities.

Recommended fix High confidence
  1. Do not use the --filter option with rostopic echo, as it passes input directly to eval() without sanitization
  2. If filtering is required, pipe rostopic output to external tools like grep, awk, or Python scripts that process data safely after retrieval
  3. Consider migrating to ROS 2, which does not have this vulnerability and is the actively maintained distribution
Caveat Avoiding --filter may require alternative approaches for data processing; ROS 2 migration involves significant architectural changes

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

Fix this in Robot Operating System Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing12.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
28.0 hours of engineering $4,760
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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-2024-41921 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
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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