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NULL Pointer Dereference and Access of Uninitialized Pointer in TensorFlow

Critical severity GitHub Reviewed Published Feb 2, 2022 in tensorflow/tensorflow • Updated Jan 11, 2023

Package

pip tensorflow (pip)

Affected versions

< 2.5.3
>= 2.6.0, < 2.6.3
= 2.7.0

Patched versions

2.5.3
2.6.3
2.7.1
pip tensorflow-cpu (pip)
< 2.5.3
>= 2.6.0, < 2.6.3
= 2.7.0
2.5.3
2.6.3
2.7.1
pip tensorflow-gpu (pip)
< 2.5.3
>= 2.6.0, < 2.6.3
= 2.7.0
2.5.3
2.6.3
2.7.1

Description

Impact

The code for boosted trees in TensorFlow is still missing validation. This allows malicious users to read and write outside of bounds of heap allocated data as well as trigger denial of service (via dereferencing nullptrs or via CHECK-failures).

This follows after CVE-2021-41208 where these APIs were still vulnerable to multiple security issues.

Note: Given that the boosted trees implementation in TensorFlow is unmaintained, it is recommend to no longer use these APIs. Instead, please use the downstream TensorFlow Decision Forests project which is newer and supports more features.

These APIs are now deprecated in TensorFlow 2.8. We will remove TensorFlow's boosted trees APIs in subsequent releases.

Patches

We have patched the known issues in multiple GitHub commits.

The fix will be included in TensorFlow 2.8.0. We will also cherrypick this commit on TensorFlow 2.7.1, TensorFlow 2.6.3, and TensorFlow 2.5.3, as these are also affected and still in supported range.

This should allow users to use existing boosted trees APIs for a while until they migrate to TensorFlow Decision Forests, while guaranteeing that known vulnerabilities are fixed.

For more information

Please consult our security guide for more information regarding the security model and how to contact us with issues and questions.

Attribution

These vulnerabilities have been reported by Yu Tian of Qihoo 360 AIVul Team and Faysal Hossain Shezan from University of Virginia. Some of the issues have been discovered internally after a careful audit of the APIs.

References

@mihaimaruseac mihaimaruseac published to tensorflow/tensorflow Feb 2, 2022
Reviewed Feb 3, 2022
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Feb 9, 2022
Last updated Jan 11, 2023

Severity

Critical

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Local
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVE ID

No known CVE

GHSA ID

GHSA-h6gw-r52c-724r

Source code

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