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🐍 PyPI
Not in CISA KEV
HIGH severity

VTK NULL pointer dereference vulnerabilityGHSA-xfhg-9pjg-xg7g

HIGH

GHSA-xfhg-9pjg-xg7g is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in vtk. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for vtk — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Also known asCVE-2021-42521PYSEC-2022-255
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
1 known
Exploitation data as of Nov 10, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
1.3%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs71th percentile — riskier than 71% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.61%1.21%1.82%0.1%1.3%May 26Sep 26Nov 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

Where this sits among everything scored

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected
🐍vtk

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

There is a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in VTK before 9.2.5, and it lies in IO/Infovis/vtkXMLTreeReader.cxx. The vendor didn't check the return value of libxml2 API 'xmlDocGetRootElement', and try to dereference it. It is unsafe as the return value can be NULL and that NULL pointer dereference may crash the application.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🐍PyPIvtkall versions9.0.1pip install --upgrade 'vtk==9.0.1'

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations
Application
vtkvtk
≤ 9.0.0
range
Exploits & PoCs
1

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

There is a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in VTK before 9.2.5, a…

gitlab.kitware.comNVDAug 2022

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for vtk, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update vtk to 9.0.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-xfhg-9pjg-xg7g is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

Frequently Asked Questions

There is a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in VTK, and it lies in IO/Infovis/vtkXMLTreeReader.cxx. The vendor didn't check the return value of libxml2 API 'xmlDocGetRootElement', and try to dereference it. It is unsafe as the return value can be NULL and that NULL pointer dereference may crash the application.
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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VTK NULL pointer dereference vulnerability (High 7.5)