CVE-2021-39228 | Memory Safety Issue when using patch or merge on state and assign the result back to state

Exp

Tremor is an event processing system for unstructured data. A vulnerability exists between versions 0.7.2 and 0.11.6. This vulnerability is a memory safety Issue when using `patch` or `merge` on `state` and assign the result back to `state`. In this case, affected versions of Tremor and the tremor-script crate maintains references to memory that might have been freed already. And these memory regions can be accessed by retrieving the `state`, e.g. send it over TCP or HTTP. This requires the Tremor server (or any other program using tremor-script) to execute a tremor-script script that uses the mentioned language construct. The issue has been patched in version 0.11.6 by removing the optimization and always cloning the target expression of a Merge or Patch. If an upgrade is not possible, a possible workaround is to avoid the optimization by introducing a temporary variable and not immediately reassigning to `state`.

Published: 2021-09-17 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2021-39228 is rated High Exploit Risk (65.1/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.31%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2021-39228

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2021-39228

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.55% 1.31% +0.75%
2 2025-03-30 0.79% 0.55% -0.24%
3 2025-03-29 — 0.79% —

Full EPSS history (11 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-39228

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 2.5 [email protected]
9.8 3.1 CRITICAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 3.9 5.9 [email protected]
7.5 2.0 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 10.0 6.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2021-39228

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2021-39228

GHSA-mc22-5q92-8v85 · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: rust — Memory Safety Issue when using patch or merge on state and assign the result back to state

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-39228

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linuxfoundation tremor >= 0.7.2, < 0.11.6 cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:tremor:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-39228

cvelogic Threat Intelligence