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Vulnerability DatabaseCVE-2021-38576

CVE-2021-38576: 
NixOS vulnerability analysis and mitigation

Overview

CVE-2021-38576 is a BIOS firmware vulnerability that affects TianoCore EDK2 firmware. The vulnerability was discovered and published on January 3, 2022. The issue stems from a BIOS bug that leaves the Platform authorization value empty in certain PC models (NVD).

Technical details

The vulnerability has been assigned a CVSS v3.1 Base Score of 7.5 (HIGH) with the vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H. The CVSS v2.0 Base Score is 7.8 (HIGH) with the vector (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C). The vulnerability affects multiple versions of TianoCore EDK2 firmware, including versions from 201808 through 202105 (NVD).

Impact

The vulnerability can be exploited to permanently brick the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) in multiple ways. Additionally, it can be used to cause a non-permanent Denial of Service (DoS) condition on the affected system (NVD).

Mitigation and workarounds

Several Linux distributions have released security patches to address this vulnerability. Debian has fixed the issue in bookworm version 2022.11-6+deb12u2 and trixie version 2024.11-5. Amazon Linux AMI 2 has also released security patches for various edk2 components (Debian Security, Rapid7).

Additional resources

Source: This report was generated using AI

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