CVE-2021-41495: Null Pointer Dereference vulnerability exists in numpy.sort in NumPy < and 1.19 in the PyArray_DescrNew function due to missing return-value validation which allows attackers to conduct DoS attacks by repetitively creating sort arrays. NOTE: While correct that validation is missing an error can only occur due to an exhaustion of memory. If the user can exhaust memory they are already privileged. Further it should be practically impossible to construct an attack which can target the memory exhaustion to occur at exactly this place
Overview
- Severity
- Medium (CVSS 5.3)
- CVSS Vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- Exploit Status
- Not Exploited
- Patch Tuesday
- 2021-Dec
- Released
- 2021-12-23
- EPSS Score
- 0.11% (percentile: 29.1%)
FAQ
Is Azure Linux the only Microsoft product that includes this open-source library and is therefore potentially affected by this vulnerability?
One of the main benefits to our customers who choose to use the Azure Linux distro is the commitment to keep it up to date with the most recent and most secure versions of the open source libraries with which the distro is composed. Microsoft is committed to transparency in this work which is why we began publishing CSAF/VEX in October 2025. See this blog post for more information. If impact to additional products is identified, we will update the CVE to reflect this.
Affected Products (2)
Other
Revision History
- 2021-12-23: Information published.