CVE-2021-42379 describes a use-after-free vulnerability in the Busybox awk applet, affecting Busybox and Fedora distributions. This flaw can be triggered by processing a specially crafted awk pattern in the next_input_file function, leading to a denial of service and potentially arbitrary code execution. With a CVSS score of 7.2 (HIGH), it is a network-exploitable vulnerability requiring high privileges, but with low attack complexity, posing a significant risk of high impact to confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Currently, there is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB), or significant community discussion or media coverage.
| Vendor | Product | Version(s) | CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
>= 1.18.0, <= 1.33.1CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:a:busybox:busybox:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | ||
33CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:33:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | ||
34CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:34:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | ||
< 1.34.0CPE match | cpe:2.3:a:busybox:busybox:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
CVSS version used by this source: 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.1 Mastodon, and 0.3 GitHub mentions.
No media coverage found for this CVE.
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.1 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.
A use-after-free in Busybox's awk applet leads to denial of service and possibly code execution when processing a crafted awk pattern in the next_input_file function
Nov 9, 2021busybox: use-after-free in awk applet leads to denial of service and possibly code execution when processing a crafted awk pattern in the next_input_file()
Nov 9, 2021