CVE-2021-41229 | Memory leak in BlueZ

Exp

BlueZ is a Bluetooth protocol stack for Linux. In affected versions a vulnerability exists in sdp_cstate_alloc_buf which allocates memory which will always be hung in the singly linked list of cstates and will not be freed. This will cause a memory leak over time. The data can be a very large object, which can be caused by an attacker continuously sending sdp packets and this may cause the service of the target device to crash.

Published: 2021-11-12 Last update: 2025-11-04 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2021-41229 is rated Exploit Available (50/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.05%). 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-2021-41229

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2021-41229

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 2025-11-21 0.23% 0.05% -0.18%
2 2025-11-18 0.03% 0.23% +0.20%
3 2025-03-30 — 0.03% —

Full EPSS history (13 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-41229

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.3 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:A)
Attacker has to be nearby on the network—same office, same link, that vibe—not the whole wide internet.
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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
 2.8 1.4 [email protected]
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:A)
Attacker has to be nearby on the network—same office, same link, that vibe—not the whole wide internet.
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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 2.8 3.6 [email protected]
3.3 2.0 LOW
AV:A/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:A)
Requires access to an adjacent network segment.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
 6.5 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2021-41229

OS Trackers for CVE-2021-41229

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2021-41229 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (bluez), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2021-41229
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-41229
suse medium CVE-2021-41229 severity moderate: SUSE including 39 source package names (bluez, bluez-5.13-5.42.2, …), 244 product×package rows across 96 product lines (HPE Helion OpenStack 8, Image SLES15-SP4-SAP-Azure-LI-BYOS, … (96 product lines)): Known Not Affected 174, Fixed 70. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-41229/
ubuntu low CVE-2021-41229 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (bluez), 15 status rows across 15 suites (bionic, focal, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 12, ignored 1, needed 1, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2021-41229

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-41229

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
bluez bluez 5.58 cpe:2.3:a:bluez:bluez:5.58:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 9.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-41229

cvelogic Threat Intelligence