Home / Security / Advisories / NTAP-20210521-0010

NTAP-20210521-0010 — CVE-2021-20284 GNU Binutils Vulnerability in NetApp Products

Published 2021-05-21 · Updated 2024-05-01 · Status: Final · Exploitation: Public · Severity: MEDIUM 5.5 · ONTAP affected: Yes

Official advisory: NTAP-20210521-0010 on security.netapp.com ↗. Affected versions, fixed releases, and workarounds live there — this page is a summary.

Product family: Cloud Backup / AltaVault / SteelStore · ONTAP | ONTAP-relevant | highest CVSS: 5.5

CVEs in this advisory

CVE-2021-20284 — MEDIUM · CVSS 5.5 · site index

What the CVE records say

CVE-2021-20284 — A flaw was found in GNU Binutils 2.35.1, where there is a heap-based buffer overflow in _bfd_elf_slurp_secondary_reloc_section in elf.c due to the number of symbols not calculated correctly. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.

Impact

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to Denial of Service (DoS).

Affected products

NetApp Cloud Backup (formerly AltaVault)
NetApp Cloud Backup OST Plug-in (formerly AltaVault OST Plug-in)
ONTAP Select Deploy administration utility

Official fixes

ONTAP Select Deploy administration utility — vendor fix ↗

What to do

Check the affected products listed above against the official advisory's affected-versions table — that is where the exact ONTAP 9 release, ONTAP tool, or management product versions are named.
If affected and a fixed release exists, plan the upgrade — see the ONTAP upgrade runbook.
If exploitation is listed as "active", treat remediation as urgent and review exposure (management LIFs, ONTAP S3, SnapMirror endpoints).
Harden in parallel: security hardening baseline and ransomware protection on ONTAP.