Systemd
CVE-2021-33910
MEDIUM
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Resource allocation limits
MITRE ATT&CK
1 technique across 1 tactic: Impact The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | CVSS score of 5.5 (MEDIUM). Attack characteristics: local attack vector, low complexity, low privileges required, no user interaction not required. Public proof-of-concept exploit code is available. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A local attacker with access to the system could exhaust system resources through uncontrolled allocation. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
basic/unit-name.c in systemd prior to 246.15, 247.8, 248.5, and 249.1 has a Memory Allocation with an Excessive Size Value (involving strdupa and alloca for a pathname controlled by a local attacker). Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. Public exploit code available.
RemediationAI
A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Set resource limits, implement rate limiting, validate input sizes.
Affects your stack
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Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified as Allocation of Resources Without Limits (CWE-770), which allows attackers to exhaust system resources through uncontrolled allocation. basic/unit-name.c in systemd prior to 246.15, 247.8, 248.5, and 249.1 has a Memory Allocation with an Excessive Size Value (involving strdupa and alloca for a pathname controlled by a local attacker) that results in an operating system crash. Affected products include: Systemd Project Systemd, Fedoraproject Fedora, Debian Debian Linux, Netapp Hci Management Node, Netapp Solidfire. Version information: prior to 246.15.
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- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
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Severity by source
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
basic/unit-name.c in systemd prior to 246.15, 247.8, 248.5, and 249.1 has a Memory Allocation with an Excessive Size Value (involving strdupa and alloca for a pathname controlled by a local attacker) that results in an operating system crash.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
GitHub
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
Stack-based buffer overflow in the getpwnam and getgrnam functions of the NSS module nss-mymachines in systemd. Rated cr
Integer overflow in the valid_user_field function in journal/journald-native.c in systemd allows remote attackers to cau
systemd before 247 does not adequately block local privilege escalation for some Sudo configurations, e.g., plausible su
A flaw in systemd v228 in /src/basic/fs-util.c caused world writable suid files to be created when using the systemd tim
It was discovered that a systemd service that uses DynamicUser property can get new privileges through the execution of
It was discovered that a systemd service that uses DynamicUser property can create a SUID/SGID binary that would be allo
A vulnerability in unit_deserialize of systemd allows an attacker to supply arbitrary state across systemd re-execution
systemd-tmpfiles in systemd through 237 mishandles symlinks present in non-terminal path components, which allows local
In systemd before v242-rc4, it was discovered that pam_systemd does not properly sanitize the environment before using t
A race condition in chown_one() of systemd allows an attacker to cause systemd to set arbitrary permissions on arbitrary
systemd v233 and earlier fails to safely parse usernames starting with a numeric digit (e.g. Rated critical severity (CV
A use-after-free vulnerability was found in systemd. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely
Exploit-DB