Buffer overflow in GNU Grub2

CVE-2021-3695

A crafted 16-bit grayscale PNG image may lead to a out-of-bounds write in the heap area. An attacker may take advantage of that to cause heap data corruption or eventually arbitrary code execution and circumvent secure boot protections. This issue has a high complexity to be exploited as an attacker needs to perform some triage over the heap layout to achieve signifcant results, also the values written into the memory are repeated three times in a row making difficult to produce valid payloads. This flaw affects grub2 versions prior grub-2.12.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

EPSS: 0.005 (38.6th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 4.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-3695?
CVE-2021-3695 is a medium-severity vulnerability in GNU Grub2, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 4.5/10. Published 2022-07-06.
How severe is CVE-2021-3695?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.5 out of 10.
Is CVE-2021-3695 known to be exploited?
19 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.