Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
Exiv2 can be forced into excessive CPU work when it writes metadata to a specially crafted image. This can stall tools or services that process untrusted images. The issue affects Exiv2 0.27.3 and earlier and is fixed in 0.27.4.
Executive priority
Treat as a moderate availability risk. Prioritize remediation where Exiv2 processes user-supplied images in automated services or high-volume workflows.
Technical view
CVE-2021-32617 is a CWE-400 uncontrolled resource consumption issue caused by a quadratic-time algorithm in Exiv2 metadata-writing paths. Exploitation requires a crafted image and victim interaction or a workflow that invokes Exiv2 to write metadata. Impact is availability only; confidentiality and integrity are not indicated.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely in image-processing pipelines, desktop tools, CMS backends, or batch jobs using Exiv2 0.27.3 or earlier to modify metadata in untrusted images.
Exploitation context
The provided sources do not show active exploitation, and the CVE is not marked KEV. Triggering requires metadata writing, which the advisory notes is less common than metadata reading.
Researcher notes
The important scoping detail is write-path-only triggering. Validation should distinguish metadata reading from metadata modification before assigning exposure. Evidence supports fixed version 0.27.4, but not active exploitation.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade Exiv2 to version 0.27.4 or later.
- Apply vendor package updates from your Linux distribution.
- Reduce or isolate metadata-writing on untrusted image files.
- Check vendor guidance for any platform-specific backports.
Validation and detection
- Inventory systems, containers, and applications using Exiv2.
- Confirm deployed Exiv2 versions are newer than 0.27.3 or vendor-patched.
- Identify workflows that write metadata to user-supplied images.
- Review image-processing services for timeouts and resource limits.
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-400: Exact CWE lookup
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Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2021-32617 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Medium
- CVSS
- 4.7 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
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 vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H13.6Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
4.7MediumVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/security/advisories/GHSA-w8mv-g8qq-36mjCVE reference
- https://github.com/Exiv2/exiv2/pull/1657CVE reference
- FEDORA-2021-d1d5a0bf0fCVE reference · vendor-advisory
- FEDORA-2021-8253c78bd7CVE reference · vendor-advisory
- FEDORA-2021-bdba47348cCVE reference · vendor-advisory
- FEDORA-2021-8917c5d9d2CVE reference · vendor-advisory
- GLSA-202312-06CVE reference · vendor-advisory
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.
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.