Memory leak in QEMU

1) Memory leak

EUVDB-ID: #VU32078

Risk: Medium

CVSSv4.0: 4 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Green]

CVE-ID: CVE-2016-10155

CWE-ID: CWE-401 - Missing release of memory after effective lifetime

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

The vulnerability exists due to memory leak within hw/watchdog/wdt_i6300esb.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) allows local guest OS privileged users to cause a denial of service (host memory consumption and QEMU process crash) via a large number of device unplug operations. A remote attacker can perform a denial of service attack.

Mitigation

Cybersecurity Help is currently unaware of any official solution to address this vulnerability.

Vulnerable software versions

QEMU: 3.1.3

CPE2.3

• cpe:2.3:a:qemu:qemu:3.1.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

External links

https://git.qemu.org/?p=qemu.git;a=commit;h=eb7a20a3616085d46aa6b4b4224e15587ec67e6e
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/01/20/14
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/01/21/4
https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95770
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2392
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2408
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/09/msg00007.html
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201702-28

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

No. This vulnerability can be exploited locally. The attacker should have authentication credentials and successfully authenticate on the system.

How the attacker can exploit this vulnerability?

The attacker would have to trick the victim to open a a specially crafted file.

The attacker would have to login to the system and perform certain actions in order to exploit this vulnerability.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.