Cyber Resilience

CVE-2021-41616

CriticalRCE

Published: 30 September 2021

Published
30 September 2021
Modified
23 April 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0069 72.3th percentile
Risk Priority 20 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2021-41616 is a critical-severity Deserialization of Untrusted Data (CWE-502) vulnerability in Apache Ddlutils. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).

Operationally, ranked in the top 27.7% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Apache DB DdlUtils 1.0 included a BinaryObjectsHelper that was intended for use when migrating database data with a SQL data type of BINARY, VARBINARY, LONGVARBINARY, or BLOB between databases using the ddlutils features. The BinaryObjectsHelper class was insecure and used…

more

ObjectInputStream.readObject without validating that the input data was safe to deserialize. Please note that DdlUtils is no longer being actively developed. To address the insecurity of the BinaryObjectHelper class, the following changes to DdlUtils have been made: (1) BinaryObjectsHelper.java has been deleted from the DdlUtils source repository and the DdlUtils feature of propagating data of SQL binary types is therefore no longer present in DdlUtils; (2) The ddlutils-1.0 release has been removed from the Apache Release Distribution Infrastructure; (3) The DdlUtils web site has been updated to indicate that DdlUtils is now available only as source code, not as a packaged release.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

apache
ddlutils
1.0

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-502

Penetration testing supplies malicious serialized objects, detecting unsafe deserialization and supporting corrective actions.

addresses: CWE-502

Evaluation of untrusted data handling (deserialization testing) reveals unsafe processing, which the required remediation process addresses.

addresses: CWE-502

Untrusted serialized data can be deserialized and observed inside the chamber, blocking gadget-chain exploitation outside the sandbox.

addresses: CWE-502

Validates or rejects untrusted serialized data before deserialization occurs.

addresses: CWE-502

Identifies and blocks malicious code introduced through deserialization of untrusted data at system boundaries.

addresses: CWE-502

Integrity verification of serialized information can detect tampering before deserialization occurs.

addresses: CWE-502

Provenance of associated data allows detection of untrusted sources before deserialization or processing occurs.

References