CVE-2018-21000 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Buffer Overflow vulnerability in safe-transmute. A fix is available for safe-transmute — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Heap overflow or corruption in safe-transmute
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2018-21000 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
safe-transmuteReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
An issue was discovered in the safe-transmute crate before 0.10.1 for Rust. A constructor's arguments are in the wrong order, causing heap memory corruption.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | safe-transmute | ≥ 0.4.0&&< 0.10.1 | 0.10.1cargo update -p safe-transmute --precise 0.10.1 |
Affected Products
safe-transmutesafe-transmute_projectDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for safe-transmute, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update safe-transmute to 0.10.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2018-21000 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2018-21000 in your dependencies?
Find it across crates.io, including transitive dependencies.