Vulnerability CVE-2021-29531


Published: 2021-05-14

Description:
TensorFlow is an end-to-end open source platform for machine learning. An attacker can trigger a `CHECK` fail in PNG encoding by providing an empty input tensor as the pixel data. This is because the implementation(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/e312e0791ce486a80c9d23110841525c6f7c3289/tensorflow/core/kernels/image/encode_png_op.cc#L57-L60) only validates that the total number of pixels in the image does not overflow. Thus, an attacker can send an empty matrix for encoding. However, if the tensor is empty, then the associated buffer is `nullptr`. Hence, when calling `png::WriteImageToBuffer`(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/e312e0791ce486a80c9d23110841525c6f7c3289/tensorflow/core/kernels/image/encode_png_op.cc#L79-L93), the first argument (i.e., `image.flat<T>().data()`) is `NULL`. This then triggers the `CHECK_NOTNULL` in the first line of `png::WriteImageToBuffer`(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/e312e0791ce486a80c9d23110841525c6f7c3289/tensorflow/core/lib/png/png_io.cc#L345-L349). Since `image` is null, this results in `abort` being called after printing the stacktrace. Effectively, this allows an attacker to mount a denial of service attack. The fix will be included in TensorFlow 2.5.0. We will also cherrypick this commit on TensorFlow 2.4.2, TensorFlow 2.3.3, TensorFlow 2.2.3 and TensorFlow 2.1.4, as these are also affected and still in supported range.

Type:

CWE-754

CVSS2 => (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P)

CVSS Base Score
Impact Subscore
Exploitability Subscore
2.1/10
2.9/10
3.9/10
Exploit range
Attack complexity
Authentication
Local
Low
No required
Confidentiality impact
Integrity impact
Availability impact
None
None
Partial
Affected software
Google -> Tensorflow 

 References:
https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/commit/26eb323554ffccd173e8a79a8c05c15b685ae4d1
https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/security/advisories/GHSA-3qxp-qjq7-w4hf

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