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High

Security advisory

Type: advisorySources: OSVCVE: CVE-2021-3738

In DCE/RPC it is possible to share the handles (cookies for resource state) between multiple connections via a mechanism called 'association groups'. These handles can reference connections to our sam.ldb database. However while the database was correctly shared, the user credentials state was only pointed at, and when one connection within that association group ended, the database would be left pointing at an invalid 'struct session_info'. The most likely outcome here is a crash, but it is possible that the use-after-free could instead allow different user state to be pointed at and this might allow more privileged access.

Products
Not specified
Affected versions
Not specified
Fixed versions
Not specified
CVEs
CVE-2021-3738
Confirmed fixed CVEs
Not specified
Updated in this feed
1 Nov 2026, 07:02 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

CVE-2021-3738

core-osv · Original source

Published 2 Mar 2022, 23:15 UTC

In DCE/RPC it is possible to share the handles (cookies for resource state) between multiple connections via a mechanism called 'association groups'. These handles can reference connections to our sam.ldb database. However while the database was correctly shared, the user credentials state was only pointed at, and when one connection within that association group ended, the database would be left pointing at an invalid 'struct session_info'. The most likely outcome here is a crash, but it is possible that the use-after-free could instead allow different user state to be pointed at and this might allow more privileged access.

osv:CVE-2021-3738
Complete source record
{
  "id": "ebaf9fc9fb6942f828e729a8b46f042d4f0c41e83ad135a7cd00dc46d91ce318",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-3738",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "CVE-2021-3738",
    "summary": "In DCE/RPC it is possible to share the handles (cookies for resource state) between multiple connections via a mechanism called 'association groups'. These handles can reference connections to our sam.ldb database. However while the database was correctly shared, the user credentials state was only pointed at, and when one connection within that association group ended, the database would be left pointing at an invalid 'struct session_info'. The most likely outcome here is a crash, but it is possible that the use-after-free could instead allow different user state to be pointed at and this might allow more privileged access.",
    "evidence": "osv:CVE-2021-3738",
    "products": [],
    "severity": "high",
    "structured": {
      "id": "CVE-2021-3738",
      "aliases": [
        "CVE-2021-3738"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H"
        }
      ],
      "affected": [
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "repo": "https://github.com/samba-team/samba",
              "type": "GIT",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "df33344d8eb40221d60c99931690703a11d91bc2"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "db11778b57610e24324aa4342f89918f66157d71"
                },
                {
                  "introduced": "9b49519cae3e967af9ea48dc5fcfb6c145e31db4"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "9312b1832e5a808a63fc7f9e7d6e70348cc9eb86"
                },
                {
                  "introduced": "fc8342bd26d1c55ca5780b427f675f31147b27f9"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "7d0c030d4233974c4b9463dad44efdb05e6186f1"
                }
              ],
              "database_specific": {
                "extracted_events": [
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:samba:samba:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "4.0.0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "4.13.14"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_RANGE"
                  },
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:samba:samba:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "4.14.0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "4.14.10"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_RANGE"
                  },
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:samba:samba:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "4.15.0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "4.15.2"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_RANGE"
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          ],
          "versions": [
            "ldb-2.3.2",
            "samba-4.14.9",
            "samba-4.15.1",
            "ldb-2.4.1",
            "ldb-2.3.1",
            "samba-4.14.8",
            "samba-4.15.0",
            "samba-4.14.7",
            "samba-4.14.6",
            "samba-4.14.5",
            "samba-4.14.3",
            "samba-4.14.0"
          ],
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2021-3738.json"
          }
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-24T10:30:47.625606331Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "references": [
        "https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202309-06",
        "https://www.samba.org/samba/security/CVE-2021-3738.html",
        "https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2021726",
        "https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14468"
      ],
      "provider_metadata": {}
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2021-3738",
        "evidence": "/id"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 436589,
  "published_at": "2022-03-02T23:15:09.07+00:00"
}