There is a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in VTK before 9.2.5, and it lies in IO/Infovis/vtkXMLTreeReader.cxx. The vendor didn't check the return value of libxml2 API 'xmlDocGetRootElement', and try to dereference it. It is unsafe as the return value can be NULL and that NULL pointer dereference may crash the application.

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

  - There is a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in VTK before 9.2.5, and it lies in     IO/Infovis/vtkXMLTreeReader.cxx. The vendor didn't check the return value of libxml2 API     'xmlDocGetRootElement', and try to dereference it. It is unsafe as the return value can be NULL and that     NULL pointer dereference may crash the application. (CVE-2021-42521)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

There are packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability referenced in the following CVE:

  - There is a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in VTK before 9.2.5, and it lies in
    IO/Infovis/vtkXMLTreeReader.cxx. The vendor didn't check the return value of libxml2 API
    'xmlDocGetRootElement', and try to dereference it. It is unsafe as the return value can be NULL and that
    NULL pointer dereference may crash the application. (CVE-2021-42521)

The remote Fedora 37 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the FEDORA-2023-2cf9dd7d52 advisory.

    Add upstream patch for CVE-2021-42521 - vtkXMLTreeReader: possible nullptr dereference

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
224178	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2021-42521	Nessus	Misc.	high
420453	SCA: security update for vtk (GHSA-xfhg-9pjg-xg7g)	Tenable Cloud Security	SCA Checks	high
420453	SCA: security update for vtk (GHSA-xfhg-9pjg-xg7g)	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	SCA Checks	high
175378	Fedora 37 : vtk (2023-2cf9dd7d52)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2021-42521

high

Tenable Plugins

high

high

high

high