Integer overflow in wayland
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- Low · Low · High
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 1 fixed, 2 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CISA ADP. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.
Summary
An internal reference count is held on the buffer pool, incremented every time a new buffer is created from the pool. The reference count is maintained as an int; on LP64 systems this can cause the reference count to overflow if the client creates a large number of wl_shm buffer objects, or if it can coerce the server to create a large number of external references to the buffer storage. With the reference count overflowing, a use-after-free can be constructed on the wl_shm_pool tracking structure, where values may be incremented or decremented; it may also be possible to construct a limited oracle to leak 4 bytes of server-side memory to the attacking client at a time.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | wayland | wayland 1.20.91 | — | No fix listed | CNA |
- wayland Vendor— Affected wayland 1.20.91 Fixed in — No fix listed CNA
Remediation
Red Hat 1 advisory
- RHSA-2023:2786 Released 2023-05-16 · Red Hat rating Moderatewayland security, bug fix, and enhancement update
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 8) libwayland-client-1.21.0-1.el8, libwayland-cursor-1.21.0-1.el8, libwayland-egl-1.21.0-1.el8 +3
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 8) | Fixed | RHSA-2023:2786 |
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2021-3782
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-pvw2-9h4r-c5cr
References
Sources
- CVE-2021-3782 · CVE Program
- CVE-2021-3782 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-pvw2-9h4r-c5cr · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2021-3782 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences