CVE-2022-21156 in Trace Analyzer and Collector
Summary
by MITRE • 02/10/2022
Access of uninitialized pointer in the Intel(R) Trace Analyzer and Collector before version 2021.5 may allow an authenticated user to potentially enable denial of service via local access.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/14/2022
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2022-21156 affects the Intel(R) Trace Analyzer and Collector software suite, specifically targeting versions prior to 2021.5. This issue represents a critical security flaw that manifests through the improper handling of memory pointers during software execution. The vulnerability arises from the software's failure to properly initialize pointer variables before utilizing them in memory operations, creating a potential attack surface for authenticated users with local system access. The Intel Trace Analyzer and Collector are widely used tools for performance analysis and debugging of applications, making this vulnerability particularly concerning given the software's prevalence in development and testing environments.
The technical root cause of this vulnerability stems from uninitialized pointer access, which is classified under CWE-457 as "Use of Uninitialized Variable" and also aligns with CWE-476 as "NULL Pointer Dereference" when the uninitialized pointer eventually resolves to a null value. When the software processes trace data or performs analysis operations, it attempts to dereference memory pointers that have not been properly initialized with valid memory addresses. This uninitialized state can lead to unpredictable behavior, memory corruption, or system instability. The flaw specifically impacts the memory management routines within the trace collection and analysis components of the Intel software suite, where pointer variables are allocated but not explicitly initialized before use in critical operations.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability creates a significant denial of service risk for systems running affected versions of Intel Trace Analyzer and Collector. An authenticated local user can exploit this flaw to crash the application or cause system instability, effectively rendering the performance analysis tools unusable for developers and system administrators. The impact extends beyond simple application crashes as the vulnerability could potentially allow for more sophisticated attacks if the uninitialized pointer access leads to memory corruption that might be exploitable for privilege escalation or code execution in certain scenarios. Given that these tools are commonly used in development environments, build servers, and continuous integration pipelines, the vulnerability could disrupt development workflows and compromise the integrity of performance testing processes.
Organizations should prioritize immediate remediation by upgrading to Intel Trace Analyzer and Collector version 2021.5 or later, which contains the necessary patches to address the uninitialized pointer access issue. System administrators should also implement additional monitoring to detect potential exploitation attempts through abnormal application behavior or crash patterns. The vulnerability demonstrates the importance of proper memory initialization practices in security-critical applications and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for "Endpoint Denial of Service" and T1068 for "Exploitation for Privilege Escalation" when considering potential exploitation vectors. Regular security assessments of development tools and performance analysis software should be conducted to identify similar memory management vulnerabilities that could compromise system stability and security.