CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2016-6836

Improper Initialization

Published: Dec 10, 2016 | Modified: Feb 12, 2023
CVSS 3.x
6
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
CVSS 2.x
2.1 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
RedHat/V2
2.3 LOW
AV:A/AC:M/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:P
RedHat/V3
2.4 LOW
CVSS:3.0/AV:A/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
Ubuntu
LOW

The vmxnet3_complete_packet function in hw/net/vmxnet3.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) allows local guest OS administrators to obtain sensitive host memory information by leveraging failure to initialize the txcq_descr object.

Weakness

The product does not initialize or incorrectly initializes a resource, which might leave the resource in an unexpected state when it is accessed or used.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Qemu Qemu * 2.7.1 (including)
Qemu Ubuntu devel *
Qemu Ubuntu trusty *
Qemu Ubuntu xenial *
Qemu Ubuntu yakkety *

Potential Mitigations

  • Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
  • For example, in Java, if the programmer does not explicitly initialize a variable, then the code could produce a compile-time error (if the variable is local) or automatically initialize the variable to the default value for the variable’s type. In Perl, if explicit initialization is not performed, then a default value of undef is assigned, which is interpreted as 0, false, or an equivalent value depending on the context in which the variable is accessed.

References