AVID-2026-R0842

Description

Use after free in boosted trees creation in TensorFlow (CVE-2021-37652)

Details

TensorFlow is an end-to-end open source platform for machine learning. In affected versions the implementation for tf.raw_ops.BoostedTreesCreateEnsemble can result in a use after free error if an attacker supplies specially crafted arguments. 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. 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.

Reason for inclusion in AVID: CVE-2021-37652 describes a use-after-free vulnerability in TensorFlow’s boosted trees creation, an AI framework component widely used in ML pipelines. It is a software vulnerability in a dependency used to build/train/deploy AI systems, thus affecting the general-purpose AI software supply chain. The report provides specific behavioral details (double-free risk, affected versions, patch commit) and references, satisfying sufficient_evidence.

References

• NVD entry
• https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/security/advisories/GHSA-m7fm-4jfh-jrg6
• https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/commit/5ecec9c6fbdbc6be03295685190a45e7eee726ab

Affected or Relevant Artifacts

• Developer: tensorflow
• Deployer: tensorflow
• Artifact Details:

Impact

AVID Taxonomy Categorization

• Risk domains: Security
• SEP subcategories: S0100: Software Vulnerability
• Lifecycle stages: L06: Deployment

CVSS

CWE

Other information

• Report Type: Advisory
• Credits:
• Date Reported: 2021-08-12
• Version: 0.3.3
• AVID Entry