CVE-2021-38190 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Buffer Overflow vulnerability in nalgebra. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for nalgebra — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Out of bounds write in nalgebra
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-38190 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
nalgebraReal-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
The Deserialize implementation for VecStorage did not maintain the invariant that the number of elements must equal nrows * ncols. Deserialization of specially crafted inputs could allow memory access beyond allocation of the vector.
This flaw was introduced in v0.11.0 (086e6e) due to the addition of an automatically derived implementation of Deserialize for MatrixVec. MatrixVec was later renamed to VecStorage in v0.16.13 (0f66403) and continued to use the automatically derived implementation of Deserialize.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | nalgebra | ≥ 0.11.0&&< 0.27.1 | 0.27.1cargo update -p nalgebra --precise 0.27.1 |
Affected Products
nalgebradimforgeResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for nalgebra, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update nalgebra to 0.27.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-38190 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop feeding it untrusted input: reject or quarantine files and payloads from unverified sources until you can upgrade, restrict accepted formats to the ones you actually need, and run the parsing or decoding step in a least-privileged sandbox or short-lived worker so a crash or corrupted read cannot reach the rest of the process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-38190 in your dependencies?
Find it across crates.io, including transitive dependencies.