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Deserialization of Untrusted Data

CVE-2021-37678

High
8.8/10

Summary

TensorFlow is an end-to-end open source platform for machine learning. In affected versions TensorFlow and Keras can be tricked to perform arbitrary code execution when deserializing a Keras model from YAML format. The [implementation](https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/460e000de3a83278fb00b61a16d161b1964f15f4/tensorflow/python/keras/saving/model_config.py#L66-L104) uses `yaml.unsafe_load` which can perform arbitrary code execution on the input. Given that YAML format support requires a significant amount of work, we have removed it for now. We have patched the issue in GitHub commit 23d6383eb6c14084a8fc3bdf164043b974818012. The fix will be included in TensorFlow 2.6.0rc2. 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.

  • LOW
  • LOCAL
  • HIGH
  • CHANGED
  • NONE
  • LOW
  • HIGH
  • HIGH

CWE-502 - Deserialization of Untrusted Data

Deserialization of untrusted data vulnerabilities enable an attacker to replace or manipulate a serialized object, replacing it with malicious data. When the object is deserialized at the victim's end the malicious data is able to compromise the victim’s system. The exploit can be devastating, its impact may range from privilege escalation, broken access control, or denial of service attacks to allowing unauthorized access to the application's internal code and logic which can compromise the entire system.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published