CVE-2021-29609: Incomplete validation in `SparseAdd`

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-665

Description

TensorFlow is an end-to-end open source platform for machine learning. Incomplete validation in `SparseAdd` results in allowing attackers to exploit undefined behavior (dereferencing null pointers) as well as write outside of bounds of heap allocated data. The implementation(https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/656e7673b14acd7835dc778867f84916c6d1cac2/tensorflow/core/kernels/sparse_add_op.cc) has a large set of validation for the two sparse tensor inputs (6 tensors in total), but does not validate that the tensors are not empty or that the second dimension of `*_indices` matches the size of corresponding `*_shape`. This allows attackers to send tensor triples that represent invalid sparse tensors to abuse code assumptions that are not protected by validation. 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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