Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
Apache Ant could run out of memory when a build reads a specially crafted ZIP or ZIP-derived file. The practical business impact is build disruption, not confirmed data theft or system takeover from the supplied sources.
Executive priority
Treat this as a build availability risk. Prioritize remediation where external files enter build workflows or where build downtime would affect delivery, releases, or customer commitments.
Technical view
CVE-2021-36374 affects Apache Ant before 1.9.16 and 1.10.11. While reading crafted ZIP, JAR, or other ZIP-derived archives, Ant may allocate excessive memory and trigger an out-of-memory denial of service. The record maps this to CWE-130.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely in CI, developer build systems, or vendor products that use affected Apache Ant versions to process ZIP, JAR, or office-style ZIP-derived inputs.
Exploitation context
The source bundle shows no CISA KEV listing and no cited evidence of active exploitation. Abuse would require an affected Ant build path to process a crafted archive.
Researcher notes
The evidence supports denial of service through excessive memory allocation while parsing ZIP-derived archives. Fixed Ant releases are named, but source details do not establish remote exploitation, privilege impact, or exploit availability.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade Apache Ant to 1.9.16, 1.10.11, or a later supported version.
- Check build tools and embedded dependencies for bundled Apache Ant versions.
- Review Oracle, NetApp, and other vendor guidance for packaged Ant exposure.
- Limit build processing of untrusted ZIP-derived files until affected Ant versions are removed.
Validation and detection
- Inventory Apache Ant versions across CI agents, developer images, and build containers.
- Review dependency manifests for Ant 1.9.x or 1.10.x below fixed releases.
- Identify build jobs that process ZIP, JAR, or office-derived archives from external sources.
- Confirm vendor products have applied advisory updates where Ant is embedded.
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-130: 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-2021-36374 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
- 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://ant.apache.org/security.htmlCVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/rdd5412a5b9a25aed2a02c3317052d38a97128314d50bc1ed36e81d38%40%3Cuser.ant.apache.org%3ECVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- [groovy-commits] 20210714 [groovy] 08/09: GROOVY-10169: Bump Ant version to 1.10.11 (incorporates CVE-2021-36373 and CVE-2021-36374)CVE reference · mailing-list, x_refsource_MLIST
- [groovy-commits] 20210715 [groovy] 02/07: GROOVY-10169: Bump Ant version to 1.10.11 (incorporates CVE-2021-36373 and CVE-2021-36374)CVE reference · mailing-list, x_refsource_MLIST
- [groovy-notifications] 20210715 [jira] [Resolved] (GROOVY-10169) Bump Ant version to 1.10.11 (incorporates CVE-2021-36373 and CVE-2021-36374)CVE reference · mailing-list, x_refsource_MLIST
- [myfaces-dev] 20210830 [GitHub] [myfaces-tobago] lofwyr14 opened a new pull request #1215: build: CVE fixCVE reference · mailing-list, x_refsource_MLIST
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuoct2021.htmlCVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20210819-0007/CVE reference · x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujan2022.htmlCVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuapr2022.htmlCVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpujul2022.htmlCVE 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.
Improper Handling of Length Parameter Inconsistency
Improper Handling of Length Parameter Inconsistency represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.