CVE-2021-392186.3MediumCWE-590

CVE-2021-39218: Out-of-bounds read/write and invalid free with `externref`s and GC safepoints in Wasmtime

bytecodealliance · wasmtime

Fixed in 0.30.0 · Affected: bytecodealliance wasmtime before 0.30.0 · Exploitation: unlikely (under 1%)

Not in CyberSIXT coverage yet: no article names this CVE. This page shows the public record.

0.3%probability of exploitation in the next 30 days

23rd percentile

050100

Higher than 23% of scored CVEs

6.3MediumCVSS 3.1

LowMediumHighCrit.

DescriptionCVE.org

Wasmtime is an open source runtime for WebAssembly & WASI. In Wasmtime from version 0.26.0 and before version 0.30.0 is affected by a memory unsoundness vulnerability. There was an invalid free and out-of-bounds read and write bug when running Wasm that uses `externref`s in Wasmtime. To trigger this bug, Wasmtime needs to be running Wasm that uses `externref`s, the host creates non-null `externrefs`, Wasmtime performs a garbage collection (GC), and there has to be a Wasm frame on the stack that is at a GC safepoint where there are no live references at this safepoint, and there is a safepoint with live references earlier in this frame's function. Under this scenario, Wasmtime would incorrectly use the GC stack map for the safepoint from earlier in the function instead of the empty safepoint. This would result in Wasmtime treating arbitrary stack slots as `externref`s that needed to be rooted for GC. At the *next* GC, it would be determined that nothing was referencing these bogus `externref`s (because nothing could ever reference them, because they are not really `externref`s) and then Wasmtime would deallocate them and run `<ExternRef as Drop>::drop` on them. This results in a free of memory that is not necessarily on the heap (and shouldn't be freed at this moment even if it was), as well as potential out-of-bounds reads and writes. Even though support for `externref`s (via the reference types proposal) is enabled by default, unless you are creating non-null `externref`s in your host code or explicitly triggering GCs, you cannot be affected by this bug. We have reason to believe that the effective impact of this bug is relatively small because usage of `externref` is currently quite rare. This bug has been patched and users should upgrade to Wasmtime version 0.30.0. If you cannot upgrade Wasmtime at this time, you can avoid this bug by disabling the reference types proposal by passing `false` to `wasmtime::Config::wasm_reference_types`.

Affected products1

From the CVE record. A product or version that is not listed is unknown, not unaffected.

bytecodealliance · wasmtime>= 0.26.0, <= 0.29.0

On the Atlas

Every published CVE is on the CyberSIXT Atlas, grouped by weakness, vendor and month.

Open the Atlas

Exploitation: Unlikely (under 1%). EPSS under 1%, or no score yet.
CISA KEV: Not listed
Public check: No public nuclei template
Weakness: Free of Memory not on the Heap · Memory Corruption
Vendor: bytecodealliance
Published: September 2021
Band: Unlikely (under 1%), September 2021

CoverageNo articles yet

No CyberSIXT article names CVE-2021-39218 yet, so there is no coverage timeline, action brief or change log for it. Everything on this page comes from the public CVE record, CISA KEV, EPSS and the nuclei template index. Search the archive or see the CVEs in the news.