CVE-2021-41208
Published: 05 November 2021
Summary
CVE-2021-41208 is a high-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Google Tensorflow. Its CVSS base score is 8.8 (High).
Operationally, ranked at the 1.8th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
This vulnerability is AI-related — categorised as Deep Learning Frameworks.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2021-0430
Vulnerability details
TensorFlow is an open source platform for machine learning. In affected versions the code for boosted trees in TensorFlow is still missing validation. As a result, attackers can trigger denial of service (via dereferencing `nullptr`s or via `CHECK`-failures) as well…
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as abuse undefined behavior (binding references to `nullptr`s). An attacker can also read and write from heap buffers, depending on the API that gets used and the arguments that are passed to the call. Given that the boosted trees implementation in TensorFlow is unmaintained, it is recommend to no longer use these APIs. We will deprecate TensorFlow's boosted trees APIs in subsequent releases. The fix will be included in TensorFlow 2.7.0. We will also cherrypick this commit on TensorFlow 2.6.1, TensorFlow 2.5.2, and TensorFlow 2.4.4, as these are also affected and still in supported range.
- CWE(s)
AI Security AnalysisAI
- AI Category
- Deep Learning Frameworks
- Risk Domain
- N/A
- OWASP Top 10 for LLMs 2025
- None mapped
- Classification Reason
- Matched keywords: tensorflow, machine learning, tensorflow, tensorflow, tensorflow, tensorflow, tensorflow, tensorflow, tensorflow
Related Threats
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
No mitigating controls mapped yet. The per-CVE control annotator has not reached this CVE.