Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2021-23210 is a crash vulnerability in SoX, an audio processing tool. A specially crafted file can trigger a divide-by-zero error while reading VOC samples, causing the application using SoX to crash. Business impact is mainly availability, especially where SoX processes user-supplied audio files.
Executive priority
Prioritize where SoX handles external files in customer-facing or automated workflows. Internal-only, manual use is lower urgency, but still track vendor updates because affected versions are not clearly bounded.
Technical view
The issue is CWE-369 in SoX read_samples() in voc.c. Public sources describe a floating point exception caused by divide-by-zero when parsing a crafted file. The source bundle does not provide CVSS, confirmed affected versions, or a named fixed release.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely in servers, pipelines, or desktop workflows that run SoX against untrusted or user-uploaded audio, especially VOC files. Version exposure is unclear because public sources list affected versions as not known.
Exploitation context
The documented impact is application crash from crafted-file processing. The source bundle does not show CISA KEV listing, active exploitation, public weaponization, or privilege escalation evidence.
Researcher notes
Evidence supports a divide-by-zero denial-of-service in voc.c read_samples(). Public details are sparse: no CVSS, no confirmed version range, and no patch reference in the provided bundle. Avoid assuming more impact than crash availability loss.
Mitigation direction
- Inventory systems and applications that invoke SoX.
- Check OS vendor and SoX guidance for fixed packages.
- Update SoX where a vendor-fixed package is available.
- Restrict or block untrusted VOC/audio file processing where practical.
- Run media conversion in isolated, restartable worker processes.
Validation and detection
- Confirm installed SoX package versions across endpoints and servers.
- Identify upload or batch workflows that pass files to SoX.
- Review crash logs for SoX floating point exceptions.
- Check vendor advisories for package-specific fixed versions.
- Verify worker isolation limits denial-of-service blast radius.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-369: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2021-23210 mapping review
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Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Unknown
- CVSS
- Not scored
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS and timeline data
No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1975670CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-23210CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://sourceforge.net/p/sox/bugs/351/CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://security.archlinux.org/CVE-2021-23210CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Divide By Zero
Divide By Zero represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.