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NTAP-20210827-0005 — CVE-2021-35942 GNU C Library (glibc) Vulnerability in NetApp Products

Published 2021-08-27 · Updated 2026-03-11 · Status: Final · Exploitation: Public · Severity: CRITICAL 9.1 · ONTAP affected: Yes

Official advisory: NTAP-20210827-0005 on security.netapp.com ↗. Affected versions, fixed releases, and workarounds live there — this page is a summary.

Product family: Active IQ Unified Manager · Brocade SAN firmware · E-Series / SANtricity · Cloud Backup / AltaVault / SteelStore · SolidFire / NetApp HCI · ONTAP | ONTAP-relevant | highest CVSS: 9.1

CVEs in this advisory

CVE-2021-35942 — CRITICAL · CVSS 9.1 · site index

What the CVE records say

CVE-2021-35942 — The wordexp function in the GNU C Library (aka glibc) through 2.33 may crash or read arbitrary memory in parse_param (in posix/wordexp.c) when called with an untrusted, crafted pattern, potentially resulting in a denial of service or disclosure of information. This occurs because atoi was used but strtoul should have been used to ensure correct calculations.

Impact

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to disclosure of sensitive information or Denial of Service (DoS).

Affected products

Active IQ Unified Manager for VMware vSphere
Brocade Fabric Operating System Firmware
E-Series SANtricity OS Controller Software 11.x
NetApp Cloud Backup (formerly AltaVault)
NetApp HCI Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) - H300S/H500S/H700S/H410S
NetApp SolidFire & HCI Management Node
NetApp SolidFire Baseboard Management Controller (BMC)
ONTAP Select Deploy administration utility

Official fixes

Active IQ Unified Manager for VMware vSphere — vendor fix ↗
E-Series SANtricity OS Controller Software 11.x — vendor fix ↗
NetApp SolidFire & HCI Management Node — vendor fix ↗
ONTAP Select Deploy administration utility — vendor fix ↗

References

https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Security%20Exceptions ↗

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.