CVE-2021-26251 - Details and Exploitation of Intel's OpenVINO Toolkit

CVE-2021-26251 refers to a potential vulnerability in Intel's Distribution of OpenVINO Toolkit, which is a set of tools for accelerating artificial intelligence workloads. The vulnerability is due to improper input validation, and if exploited, it can enable a denial of service attack via network access. This post aims to provide a comprehensive explanation of this vulnerability, demonstrate a sample code snippet, as well as explain the exploitation process.

Before diving into the technical details, let's provide some background on Intel's OpenVINO Toolkit. It is an AI (Artificial Intelligence) toolkit designed to facilitate the development and deployment of Deep Learning (DL) models. Developers commonly use this toolkit in industries such as retail, healthcare, and more to optimize the performance of their AI solutions on Intel hardware.

Link to the original Intel Security Advisory can be found here.

Vulnerability Explanation

CVE-2021-26251 is a vulnerability present in the Intel Distribution of OpenVINO Toolkit, where the toolkit does not properly validate certain input values. This flaw allows an authenticated user with network access to potentially cause a Denial of Service (DoS) on the system running the OpenVINO toolkit.

Denial of Service attacks can degrade the system's performance or cause it to crash, and the user must have network access to the affected system to exploit the vulnerability. Though this potential security risk exists, Intel has rated it as "Moderate" in severity, meaning it is not currently critical but should be addressed to ensure the system's safety.

Code Snippet

Consider the following code snippet of a function that uses the OpenVINO Toolkit (this is just an example, not the actual problematic code). The code below receives an input matrix and computes the product using the OpenVINO Toolkit:

from openvino.inference_engine import IECore
import numpy as np

def matrix_product(input_matrix_1, input_matrix_2):
    ie = IECore()
    matrix_1 = np.array(input_matrix_1, dtype=np.float32)
    matrix_2 = np.array(input_matrix_2, dtype=np.float32)
    product_result = np.dot(matrix_1, matrix_2)
    return product_result

CVE-2021-26251 could be present in the matrix_product function due to improper input validation (both in size and type) of the input matrices that the function accepts.

Exploitation Details

To exploit the vulnerability, an attacker must first gain network access and authenticate themselves to the system running the OpenVINO Toolkit. Once authenticated, the attacker can then hijack the input matrices and craft malicious input that triggers a DoS condition. Given the improper input validation vulnerability, the network session and user access privileges can allow a successful DoS attack to occur.

Patching & Remediation

Intel has addressed this vulnerability and released updates to rectify the vulnerability in the affected version of the OpenVINO Toolkit. It is highly recommended to patch your system by updating the OpenVINO Toolkit to the latest version as detailed in Intel's advisory linked earlier in this article.

In addition to updating the OpenVINO Toolkit, it is essential for developers using the toolkit to implement proper input validation to reduce the chances of malicious manipulation leading to security risks.

Conclusion

CVE-2021-26251, though not deemed a critical vulnerability, should be addressed as it poses a potential security risk to systems running the Intel OpenVINO Toolkit. Update the OpenVINO Toolkit and ensure adequate input validation when using the toolkit to develop AI applications. Preventing such vulnerabilities from being exploited can help ensure the secure and efficient functioning of your AI-powered systems.

Timeline

Published on: 11/11/2022 16:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 11/17/2022 15:44:00 UTC