CVE-2021-25217

A buffer overrun in lease file parsing code can be used to exploit a common vulnerability shared by dhcpd and dhclient

HIGH
7.4
CVSS Score
Published: May 26, 2021 at 10:10 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 03:41 AM UTC
26 products affected across 5 vendorsDebian LinuxFedoraONTAP Select Deploy administration utility

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Severity
HIGH7.4
Exploit prediction
EPSS 6%

Description

In ISC DHCP 4.1-ESV-R1 -> 4.1-ESV-R16, ISC DHCP 4.4.0 -> 4.4.2 (Other branches of ISC DHCP (i.e., releases in the 4.0.x series or lower and releases in the 4.3.x series) are beyond their End-of-Life (EOL) and no longer supported by ISC. From inspection it is clear that the defect is also present in releases from those series, but they have not been officially tested for the vulnerability), The outcome of encountering the defect while reading a lease that will trigger it varies, according to: the component being affected (i.e., dhclient or dhcpd) whether the package was built as a 32-bit or 64-bit binary whether the compiler flag -fstack-protection-strong was used when compiling In dhclient, ISC has not successfully reproduced the error on a 64-bit system. However, on a 32-bit system it is possible to cause dhclient to crash when reading an improper lease, which could cause network connectivity problems for an affected system due to the absence of a running DHCP client process. In dhcpd, when run in DHCPv4 or DHCPv6 mode: if the dhcpd server binary was built for a 32-bit architecture AND the -fstack-protection-strong flag was specified to the compiler, dhcpd may exit while parsing a lease file containing an objectionable lease, resulting in lack of service to clients. Additionally, the offending lease and the lease immediately following it in the lease database may be improperly deleted. if the dhcpd server binary was built for a 64-bit architecture OR if the -fstack-protection-strong compiler flag was NOT specified, the crash will not occur, but it is possible for the offending lease and the lease which immediately followed it to be improperly deleted.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

Affected range stops below 4.1-ESV-R16-P1, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 4.4.2-P1, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
2.3.0 ≤ v < 2.15.0
Affected range stops below 2.15.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
v < 2.15.0
Affected range stops below 2.15.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
2.3.0 ≤ v < 2.15.0
Affected range stops below 2.15.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
2.3.0 ≤ v < 2.15.0
Affected range stops below 2.15.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
2.3.0 ≤ v < 2.15.0
Affected range stops below 2.15.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

CVSS

7.4HIGHisc
Attack Vector
ADJACENT_NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
CHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-119

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