CVE-2021-29509
HIGHEPSS 74th pctlDescription
Puma is a concurrent HTTP 1.1 server for Ruby/Rack applications. The fix for CVE-2019-16770 was incomplete. The original fix only protected existing connections that had already been accepted from having their requests starved by greedy persistent-connections saturating all threads in the same process. However, new connections may still be starved by greedy persistent-connections saturating all threads in all processes in the cluster. A `puma` server which received more concurrent `keep-alive` connections than the server had threads in its threadpool would service only a subset of connections, denying service to the unserved connections. This problem has been fixed in `puma` 4.3.8 and 5.3.1. Setting `queue_requests false` also fixes the issue. This is not advised when using `puma` without a reverse proxy, such as `nginx` or `apache`, because you will open yourself to slow client attacks (e.g. slowloris). The fix is very small and a git patch is available for those using unsupported versions of Puma.
How to fix
TridentStack Control can deploy fixes like this automatically across your Windows, macOS, and Linux fleet. See how it works
Remediation is compiled from vendor and distribution security advisories. Always confirm against the linked source for your exact version and platform.
CVSS v3 Vector
Exploitability
Impact
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Exploit Intelligence
Elevated risk: more likely to be exploited than 74% of all known CVEs.
References
Related Vulnerabilities
Other CWE-400 (Resource Exhaustion) vulnerabilities, ordered by exploit likelihood. View all
| CVE | Severity | CVSS | EPSS | Exploited | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2023-44487 | High | 7.5 | 100% | KEV | Fix |
| CVE-2021-44228 | Critical | 10.0 | 100% | KEV + Ransom | Fix |
| CVE-2011-3192 | High | 7.8 | 99% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2019-11478 | Medium | 5.3 | 95% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2023-21547 | High | 7.5 | 89% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2024-25617 | Medium | 5.3 | 89% | - | Fix |
Common questions
How do I fix CVE-2021-29509?
Upgrade puma on debian 11 to 4.3.8-1 or later.
Is CVE-2021-29509 being actively exploited?
Not that we know of. CVE-2021-29509 is not in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Its EPSS score of 1.6% is the estimated probability that it will be exploited in the next 30 days. That is higher than 74% of all scored CVEs.
How severe is CVE-2021-29509?
CVE-2021-29509 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.5, rated high. CVSS rates the technical impact if the vulnerability is exploited, not how likely that is, so weigh it alongside the exploit-prediction score when you decide what to patch first.
What does CVE-2021-29509 affect?
Published advisories record a fix for puma (Debian). Only products with a sourced advisory are listed, so treat this as what we can cite rather than a complete inventory.
Embed a live status badge for CVE-2021-29509
Markdown
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This product uses NVD data but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS scores courtesy of FIRST.org (https://www.first.org/epss). Source: CISA KEV Catalog. Data as of 2024-11-21.