CVE-2021-29596: Division by zero in TFLite's implementation of `EmbeddingLookup`

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2021-05-14 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-369

Description

TensorFlow is an end-to-end open source platform for machine learning. The implementation of the `EmbeddingLookup` TFLite operator is vulnerable to a division by zero error(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/e4b29809543b250bc9b19678ec4776299dd569ba/tensorflow/lite/kernels/embedding_lookup.cc#L73-L74). An attacker can craft a model such that the first dimension of the `value` input is 0. The fix will be included in TensorFlow 2.5.0. We will also cherrypick this commit on TensorFlow 2.4.2, TensorFlow 2.3.3, TensorFlow 2.2.3 and TensorFlow 2.1.4, as these are also affected and still in supported range.

Affected products

tensorflow: before 2.1.4; from 2.2.0 before 2.2.3; from 2.3.0 before 2.3.3; from 2.4.0 before 2.4.2 — fixed in 2.1.4, 2.2.3, 2.3.3, 2.4.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: tensorflow 2.1.4, 2.2.3, 2.3.3, 2.4.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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