CVE-2021-29605: Integer overflow in TFLite memory allocation

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 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-190

Description

TensorFlow is an end-to-end open source platform for machine learning. The TFLite code for allocating `TFLiteIntArray`s is vulnerable to an integer overflow issue(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/4ceffae632721e52bf3501b736e4fe9d1221cdfa/tensorflow/lite/c/common.c#L24-L27). An attacker can craft a model such that the `size` multiplier is so large that the return value overflows the `int` datatype and becomes negative. In turn, this results in invalid value being given to `malloc`(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/4ceffae632721e52bf3501b736e4fe9d1221cdfa/tensorflow/lite/c/common.c#L47-L52). In this case, `ret->size` would dereference an invalid pointer. 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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