High severity · published Aug 25, 2022
CVE-2021-42521
There is a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in VTK before 9.2.5, and it lies in IO/Infovis/vtkXMLTreeReader.cxx
7.5
CVSS
1.3%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
There is a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in VTK before 9.2.5, and it lies in IO/Infovis/vtkXMLTreeReader.cxx. The vendor didn't check the return value of libxml2 API 'xmlDocGetRootElement', and try to dereference it. It is unsafe as the return value can be NULL and that NULL pointer dereference may crash the application.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)1.3% · higher than 71% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
VT
vtk ·
VTK - 9.0.0 and before · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-42521
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-42521
discourse.vtk.org
https://discourse.vtk.org/t/vtk-9-2-5-is-out/10549
Exploit
https://gitlab.kitware.com/vtk/vtk/issues/17818
lists.fedoraproject.org
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/PCTMSAAVP4BW2HTZLDWMGKZ2WEC5OFLK/