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Use after free in boosted trees creation

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Aug 11, 2021 in tensorflow/tensorflow • Updated Jan 29, 2023

Package

pip tensorflow (pip)

Affected versions

< 2.3.4
>= 2.4.0, < 2.4.3
= 2.5.0

Patched versions

2.3.4
2.4.3
2.5.1
pip tensorflow-cpu (pip)
< 2.3.4
>= 2.4.0, < 2.4.3
= 2.5.0
2.3.4
2.4.3
2.5.1
pip tensorflow-gpu (pip)
< 2.3.4
>= 2.4.0, < 2.4.3
= 2.5.0
2.3.4
2.4.3
2.5.1

Description

Impact

The implementation for tf.raw_ops.BoostedTreesCreateEnsemble can result in a use after free error if an attacker supplies specially crafted arguments:

import tensorflow as tf

v= tf.Variable([0.0])
tf.raw_ops.BoostedTreesCreateEnsemble(
  tree_ensemble_handle=v.handle,
  stamp_token=[0],
  tree_ensemble_serialized=['0']) 

The implementation uses a reference counted resource and decrements the refcount if the initialization fails, as it should. However, when the code was written, the resource was represented as a naked pointer but later refactoring has changed it to be a smart pointer. Thus, when the pointer leaves the scope, a subsequent free-ing of the resource occurs, but this fails to take into account that the refcount has already reached 0, thus the resource has been already freed. During this double-free process, members of the resource object are accessed for cleanup but they are invalid as the entire resource has been freed.

Patches

We have patched the issue in GitHub commit 5ecec9c6fbdbc6be03295685190a45e7eee726ab.

The fix will be included in TensorFlow 2.6.0. We will also cherrypick this commit on TensorFlow 2.5.1, TensorFlow 2.4.3, and TensorFlow 2.3.4, as these are also affected and still in supported range.

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

This vulnerability has been reported by members of the Aivul Team from Qihoo 360.

References

@mihaimaruseac mihaimaruseac published to tensorflow/tensorflow Aug 11, 2021
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Aug 12, 2021
Reviewed Aug 24, 2021
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Aug 25, 2021
Last updated Jan 29, 2023

Severity

High
7.8
/ 10

CVSS base metrics

Attack vector
Local
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
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

CVE ID

CVE-2021-37652

GHSA ID

GHSA-m7fm-4jfh-jrg6

Source code

No known source code
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