CVE-2021-25216

HIGH

BIND 9.5.0-9.11.29, 9.12.0-9.16.13, 9.17.0-9.17.1 - RCE

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In BIND 9.5.0 -> 9.11.29, 9.12.0 -> 9.16.13, and versions BIND 9.11.3-S1 -> 9.11.29-S1 and 9.16.8-S1 -> 9.16.13-S1 of BIND Supported Preview Edition, as well as release versions 9.17.0 -> 9.17.1 of the BIND 9.17 development branch, BIND servers are vulnerable if they are running an affected version and are configured to use GSS-TSIG features. In a configuration which uses BIND's default settings the vulnerable code path is not exposed, but a server can be rendered vulnerable by explicitly setting values for the tkey-gssapi-keytab or tkey-gssapi-credential configuration options. Although the default configuration is not vulnerable, GSS-TSIG is frequently used in networks where BIND is integrated with Samba, as well as in mixed-server environments that combine BIND servers with Active Directory domain controllers. For servers that meet these conditions, the ISC SPNEGO implementation is vulnerable to various attacks, depending on the CPU architecture for which BIND was built: For named binaries compiled for 64-bit platforms, this flaw can be used to trigger a buffer over-read, leading to a server crash. For named binaries compiled for 32-bit platforms, this flaw can be used to trigger a server crash due to a buffer overflow and possibly also to achieve remote code execution. We have determined that standard SPNEGO implementations are available in the MIT and Heimdal Kerberos libraries, which support a broad range of operating systems, rendering the ISC implementation unnecessary and obsolete. Therefore, to reduce the attack surface for BIND users, we will be removing the ISC SPNEGO implementation in the April releases of BIND 9.11 and 9.16 (it had already been dropped from BIND 9.17). We would not normally remove something from a stable ESV (Extended Support Version) of BIND, but since system libraries can replace the ISC SPNEGO implementation, we have made an exception in this case for reasons of stability and security.

References (10)

Core 10
Core References
Not Applicable x_refsource_confirm
https://kb.isc.org/v1/docs/cve-2021-25215
Mailing List, Third Party Advisory mailing-list x_refsource_mlist
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/04/29/1
Mailing List, Third Party Advisory mailing-list x_refsource_mlist
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/04/29/2
Mailing List, Third Party Advisory mailing-list x_refsource_mlist
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/04/29/3
Mailing List, Third Party Advisory mailing-list x_refsource_mlist
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/04/29/4
Third Party Advisory vendor-advisory x_refsource_debian
https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4909
Mailing List, Third Party Advisory mailing-list x_refsource_mlist
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/05/msg00001.html
Third Party Advisory x_refsource_confirm
https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20210521-0006/
Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry x_refsource_misc
https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-21-657/
Patch, Third Party Advisory x_refsource_confirm
https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/pdf/ssa-389290.pdf

Scores

CVSS v3 8.1
EPSS 0.2774
EPSS Percentile 96.5%
Attack Vector NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Details

CWE
CWE-125
Status published
Products (32)
debian/debian_linux 9.0
debian/debian_linux 10.0
isc/bind 9.9.3 s1
isc/bind 9.9.12 s1
isc/bind 9.9.13 s1
isc/bind 9.10.5 s1
isc/bind 9.10.7 s1
isc/bind 9.11.3 s1
isc/bind 9.11.5 s3 (3 CPE variants)
isc/bind 9.11.6 s1
... and 22 more
Published Apr 29, 2021
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026