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CVE-2021-26955

Unchecked Return Value in xcb

9.8 CriticalFix available

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because xcb::xproto::GetAtomNameReply::name() calls std::str::from_utf8_unchecked() on unvalidated bytes from an X server.

Attack profile

How easy it is to exploit

Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges needed
None
User interaction
None

What an attacker can affect

Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Exploit likelihood

1.75%Up 1.3 points since Apr 14, 2021
90%50%10%1%

What each source reports

NVD Score used 9.8

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because xcb::xproto::GetAtomNameReply::name() calls std::str::from_utf8_unchecked() on unvalidated bytes from an X server.

Record
CVE-2021-26955
CVSS 3.1
9.8 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.0
7.5 HighAV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Weakness
CWE-252
Updated
2026-11-02
CVE List No score

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because xcb::xproto::GetAtomNameReply::name() calls std::str::from_utf8_unchecked() on unvalidated bytes from an X server.

Record
CVE-2021-26955
Updated
2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2021-1523 No score

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because xcb::xproto::GetAtomNameReply::name() calls std::str::from_utf8_unchecked() on unvalidated bytes from an X server.

Record
EUVD-2021-1523
Updated
2026-11-03
GitHub AdvisoriesGHSA-3288-cwgw-ch86 9.8

Unchecked Return Value in xcb

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because xcb::xproto::GetAtomNameReply::name() calls std::str::from_utf8_unchecked() on unvalidated bytes from an X server.

Record
GHSA-3288-cwgw-ch86
CVSS 3.1
9.8 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-252
Updated
2026-11-02
OSV 9.8

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because xcb::xproto::GetAtomNameReply::name() calls std::str::from_utf8_unchecked() on unvalidated bytes from an X server.

Record
CVE-2021-26955
CVSS 3.1
9.8 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVCVE-2021-26956 9.8

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because bytes from an X server can be interpreted as any data type returned by xcb::xproto::GetPropertyReply::value.

Record
CVE-2021-26956
CVSS 3.1
9.8 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-02
Show 9 moreShow less
OSVCVE-2021-26957 9.8

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because there is an out-of-bounds read in xcb::xproto::change_property(), as demonstrated by a format=32 T=u8 situation where out-of-bounds bytes are sent to an X server.

Record
CVE-2021-26957
CVSS 3.1
9.8 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVCVE-2021-26958 8.8

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because transmutation to the wrong type can happen after xcb::base::cast_event uses std::mem::transmute to return a reference to an arbitrary type.

Record
CVE-2021-26958
CVSS 3.1
8.8 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVDEBIAN-CVE-2021-26955 9.8

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because xcb::xproto::GetAtomNameReply::name() calls std::str::from_utf8_unchecked() on unvalidated bytes from an X server.

Record
DEBIAN-CVE-2021-26955
CVSS 3.1
9.8 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVGHSA-2xpg-3hx4-fm9r 9.8

Out of bounds read in xcb

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because there is an out-of-bounds read in xcb::xproto::change_property(), as demonstrated by a format=32 T=u8 situation where out-of-bounds bytes are sent to an X server.

Record
GHSA-2xpg-3hx4-fm9r
CVSS 3.1
9.8 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-125
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVGHSA-3288-cwgw-ch86 9.8

Unchecked Return Value in xcb

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because xcb::xproto::GetAtomNameReply::name() calls std::str::from_utf8_unchecked() on unvalidated bytes from an X server.

Record
GHSA-3288-cwgw-ch86
CVSS 3.1
9.8 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-252
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVGHSA-3cj3-jrrp-9rxf 8.8

Unchecked Return Value in xcb

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because transmutation to the wrong type can happen after xcb::base::cast_event uses std::mem::transmute to return a reference to an arbitrary type.

Record
GHSA-3cj3-jrrp-9rxf
CVSS 3.1
8.8 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-252
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVGHSA-mp6r-fgw2-rxfx 9.8

Arbitrary return types in xcb

The function xcb::xproto::GetPropertyReply::value() returns a slice of type T where T is an unconstrained type parameter. The raw bytes received from the X11 server are interpreted as the requested type. The users of the xcb crate are advised to only call this function with the intended types. These are u8, u16, and u32.

This issue is tracked here: https://github.com/rust-x-bindings/rust-xcb/issues/95

Record
GHSA-mp6r-fgw2-rxfx
CVSS 3.1
9.8 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness
CWE-657
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVUBUNTU-CVE-2021-26955 9.8

An issue was discovered in the xcb crate through 2021-02-04 for Rust. It has a soundness violation because xcb::xproto::GetAtomNameReply::name() calls std::str::from_utf8_unchecked() on unvalidated bytes from an X server.

Record
UBUNTU-CVE-2021-26955
CVSS 3.1
9.8 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Updated
2026-11-02
OSVRUSTSEC-2021-0019 No score

Multiple soundness issues

Calls std::str::from_utf8_unchecked() without any checks

The function xcb::xproto::GetAtomNameReply::name() calls std::str::from_utf8_unchecked() on the raw bytes that were received from the X11 server without any validity checks. The X11 server only prevents interior null bytes, but otherwise allows any X11 client to create an atom for arbitrary bytes.

This issue is tracked here: https://github.com/rust-x-bindings/rust-xcb/issues/96

xcb::xproto::GetPropertyReply::value() allows arbitrary return types

The function xcb::xproto::GetPropertyReply::value() returns a slice of type T where T is an unconstrained type parameter. The raw bytes received from the X11 server are interpreted as the requested type.

The users of the xcb crate are advised to only call this function with the intended types. These are u8, u16, and u32.

This issue is tracked here: https://github.com/rust-x-bindings/rust-xcb/issues/95

Out of bounds read in xcb::xproto::change_property()

xcb::xproto::change_property has (among others) the arguments format: u8 and data: &[T]. The intended use is one of the following cases:

  • format = 8 and T = u8
  • format = 16 and T = u16
  • format = 32 and T = u32 However, this constraint is not enforced. For example, it is possible to call the function with format = 32 and T = u8. In this case, a read beyond the end of the data slice is performed and the bytes are sent to the X11 server.

The users of the xcb crate are advised to only call this function with one of the intended argument combinations.

This issue is tracked here: https://github.com/rust-x-bindings/rust-xcb/issues/94

'Safe' wrapper around std::mem::transmute()

The function xcb::base::cast_event() takes a reference to a xcb::base::GenericEvent and returns a reference to an arbitrary type, as requested by the caller (or found via type interference). The function is implemented as a direct call to std::mem::transmute(). Since the return type is not constrained, this allows transmution to an incorrect type or a type that is larger than the X11 event that was passed in.

X11 events are mostly always 32 bytes large and this function works as intended.

Users are advised to only cast to the event structs provided by the xcb crate (and hope for the best).

This issue is tracked here: https://github.com/rust-x-bindings/rust-xcb/issues/78

Record
RUSTSEC-2021-0019
Updated
2026-11-02

Affected products

Affected packages

Affected packages
PackageAffectedFixed
xcb
crates.io
before 1.0.0
1.0.0
rust-xcb
Debian:12
before 1.1.1-1
1.1.1-1
rust-xcb
Debian:13
before 1.1.1-1
1.1.1-1
rust-xcb
Debian:14
before 1.1.1-1
1.1.1-1
xcb
crates.io
From an advisory covering 4 CVEs
before 1.0.0
1.0.0
xcb
crates.io
From an advisory covering 4 CVEs
0.0.0-0 up to 1.0.0
1.0.0
rust-xcb
Ubuntu:22.04:LTS
All versions, plus listed versions
0.9.0-2
None known

History

History
RecordedChangedSources
affected, facts
aliasesEUVD
first indexedCVE List, GitHub Advisories, NVD, OSV

Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.

In short

CVE-2021-26955 is a critical vulnerability (CVSS 9.8) in Xcb Project Xcb, published February 4, 2021. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 1.75%, the 77th percentile. Fixed in xcb 1.0.0.

References

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