Memory leak in QEMU

1) Memory leak

EUVDB-ID: #VU32083

Risk: Medium

CVSSv3.1: 6 [AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H/E:U/RL:U/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2017-5579

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 the serial_exit_core function in hw/char/serial.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

http://git.qemu-project.org/?p=qemu.git;a=commit;h=8409dc884a201bf74b30a9d232b6bbdd00cb7e2b
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/01/24/8
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/01/25/3
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95780
http://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2392
http://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2408
http://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/09/msg00007.html
http://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.