CURL-CVE-2021-22901

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    CURL-CVE-2021-22901

    Published: 26 May 2021Last Modified: 27 May 2026

    Summary: TLS session caching disaster

    Details: libcurl can be tricked into using already freed memory when a new TLS session is negotiated or a client certificate is requested on an existing connection. For example, this can happen when a TLS server requests a client certificate on a connection that was established without one. A malicious server can use this in rare unfortunate circumstances to potentially reach remote code execution in the client. OpenSSL can declare a "new session" for different reasons, including the initial TLS handshake completion, TLS 1.2 (or earlier) renegotiation, or TLS 1.3 client certificate requests. When libcurl at runtime sets up support for session ID caching on a connection using OpenSSL, it stores pointers to the transfer in-memory object for later retrieval when OpenSSL considers a new session to be established. However, if the connection is used by multiple transfers (like with a reused HTTP/1.1 connection or multiplexed HTTP/2 connection) that first transfer object might be freed before the new session is established on that connection and then the function accesses a memory buffer that might be freed. When using that memory, libcurl might even call a function pointer in the object, making it possible for a remote code execution if the server could somehow manage to get crafted memory content into the correct place in memory.

    References:

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name:

    Purl:

    Affected ranges

    Type: SEMVER

    Events:

    Introduced- 7.75.0
    Fixed -7.77.0

    Affected versions

    7.76.1
    7.76.0

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High
    CURL-CVE-2021-22901 | CVE-DB