Versions of distributed earlier than 2021.10.0 had a potential security vulnerability relating to single-machine Dask clusters.
Clusters started with dask.distributed.LocalCluster or dask.distributed.Client() (which defaults to using LocalCluster) would mistakenly configure their respective Dask workers to listen on external interfaces (typically with a randomly selected high port) rather than only on localhost. A Dask cluster created using this method AND running on a machine that has these ports exposed could be used by a sophisticated attacker to enable remote code execution. Users running on machines with standard firewalls in place, or using clusters created via cluster objects other than LocalCluster (e.g. dask_kubernetes.KubeCluster) should not be affected. This vulnerability is documented in CVE-2021-42343, and was fixed in version 2021.10.0 (PR #5427).
// cvss v3.1 vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Checked 2026-11-06 at 22:38 UTC. The most recent advisory here was published 2026-01-16. Updated continuously from NVD, GHSA, OSV and CNA feeds.