CVE-2018-20998: Arrayfire Potential Memory Corruption Vulnerability

CRITICAL
Advisory Identifier: GHSA-69fv-gw6g-8ccg
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CVSS 9.8
CWE-119
Published
Advisory Summary

CVE-2018-20998 is a CRITICAL (CVSS 9.8) potential memory corruption vulnerability (CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer) affecting Arrayfire libraries in the crates.io ecosystem. The issue involves potential memory corruption in arrayfire. Remediation is available by upgrading affected packages to version 3.6.0.

CVE-2018-20998 at a Glance

CVE Identifier CVE-2018-20998
GHSA Identifier GHSA-69fv-gw6g-8ccg
Severity CRITICAL
CVSS v3.1 Base Score 9.8
CWE Classification CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer
Affected Product Arrayfire
Package Ecosystem crates.io
Published Date
Last Updated

Security Impact

CVSS: 9.8

The security impact metrics below are parsed directly from the CVSS v3.1 vector string (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H).

Attack Vector Network (AV:N)
Attack Complexity Low (AC:L)
Privileges Required None (PR:N)
User Interaction None (UI:N)
Scope Unchanged (S:U)
Confidentiality High (C:H)
Integrity High (I:H)
Availability High (A:H)

How to Fix CVE-2018-20998

To remediate this vulnerability, upgrade all affected Arrayfire dependencies to a patched release. Both direct and transitive dependencies should be checked, as frameworks or security libraries may pull in vulnerable versions transitively.

arrayfire fixed: 3.6.0 
Upgrade arrayfire to 3.6.0
arrayfire fixed: 3.6.0 
pip install arrayfire>=3.6.0
Verify Direct and Transitive Dependencies

Run the following command in your project directory to verify that all resolved dependencies use the patched release: 

inspect dependencies for arrayfire

How to Check if You Are Affected

To determine whether your application is affected by CVE-2018-20998, inspect your project dependencies for Arrayfire:

inspect dependencies for arrayfire

Analyze the terminal output to locate any version of Arrayfire in your dependency tree. If any resolved version matches the vulnerable ranges listed in the table below (for example, versions earlier than 3.6.0), your application is affected.

Note: Verify declared build manifests and deployed runtime container environments.

Technical Details

Vulnerability Mechanism & Technical Analysis

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer, where the product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it reads from or writes to a memory location outside the buffer's intended boundary. this may result in read or write operations on unexpected memory locations that could be linked to other variables, data structures, or internal program data. In Arrayfire, software state validation or input boundaries are circumvented during processing. Review the official source advisory statement below for specific affected components, classes, and reproduction details.

Source Advisory Statement

The attribute repr() added to enums to be compatible with C-FFI caused memory corruption on MSVC toolchain. arrayfire crates <= version 3.5.0 do not have this issue when used with Rust versions 1.27 or earlier. The issue only started to appear since Rust version 1.28. The issue seems to be interlinked with which version of Rust is being used. The issue was fixed in crate 3.6.0.

CVE-2018-20998 Affected Arrayfire Versions

2 component(s)
Fixed Versions:
3.6.0
Product / Package Ecosystem Affected Versions Fixed Version
arrayfire
 crates.io
< 3.6.0
3.6.0
arrayfire
pypi/arrayfire
PyPI
< 3.6.0
3.6.0

References

NVD — CVE-2018-20998 NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-20998
Arrayfire Source Repository REPOSITORY
https://github.com/arrayfire/arrayfire-rust/pull/177
Security Fix Commit FIX COMMIT
https://github.com/arrayfire/arrayfire-rust/commit/a5256f3e5e23b83eaad69699e0b04653aba04fb8
Arrayfire Source Repository REPOSITORY
https://github.com/arrayfire/arrayfire-rust
Arrayfire Source Repository REPOSITORY
https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/arrayfire/PYSEC-2019-144.yaml
rustsec.org/advisories/rustsec-... WEB
https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2018-0011.html

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2018-20998?
CVE-2018-20998 is a security vulnerability in Arrayfire involving Potential memory corruption in arrayfire under CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer.
Which Arrayfire versions are affected?
Affected versions include releases prior to 3.6.0 across affected packages: arrayfire.
What version fixes CVE-2018-20998?
Upgrading to 3.6.0 (or the latest patched release for your respective branch) resolves the vulnerability.
Is arrayfire affected?
Yes, arrayfire is affected in releases prior to 3.6.0. Upgrade your dependency to 3.6.0 or later.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2018-20998?
CVE-2018-20998 has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (CRITICAL) with vector string CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.
What CWE is associated with CVE-2018-20998?
CVE-2018-20998 is classified under CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer (The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it reads from or writes to a memory location outside the buffer's intended boundary. This may result in read or write operations on unexpected memory locations that could be linked to other variables, data structures, or internal program data.).
How can I check crates.io dependencies for CVE-2018-20998?
Run the dependency tree command: 'inspect dependencies for arrayfire'. This command lists direct and transitive dependencies in your build configuration so you can verify if a vulnerable version is resolved.
Machine-readable OSV JSON OSV v1.5 Schema
Normalized schema output
View Raw JSON 
{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-69fv-gw6g-8ccg",
  "modified" : "2024-09-12T20:47:21Z",
  "published" : "2021-08-25T20:43:26Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2018-20998" ],
  "summary" : "Potential memory corruption in arrayfire",
  "details" : "The attribute repr() added to enums to be compatible with C-FFI caused memory corruption on MSVC toolchain.\n\narrayfire crates <= version 3.5.0 do not have this issue when used with Rust versions 1.27 or earlier. The issue only started to appear since Rust version 1.28.\n\nThe issue seems to be interlinked with which version of Rust is being used.\n\nThe issue was fixed in crate 3.6.0.",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H"
  }, {
    "type" : "CVSS_V4",
    "score" : "CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "crates.io",
      "name" : "arrayfire"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "3.6.0"
      } ]
    } ]
  }, {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "PyPI",
      "name" : "arrayfire"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "3.6.0"
      } ]
    } ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-20998"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/arrayfire/arrayfire-rust/pull/177"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/arrayfire/arrayfire-rust/commit/a5256f3e5e23b83eaad69699e0b04653aba04fb8"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/arrayfire/arrayfire-rust"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/arrayfire/PYSEC-2019-144.yaml"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2018-0011.html"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-119" ],
    "severity" : "CRITICAL",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2021-08-19T21:24:28Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : "2019-08-26T18:15:00Z"
  }
}