CVE-2021-4207

Description

A flaw was found in the QXL display device emulation in QEMU. A double fetch of guest controlled values cursor->header.width and cursor->header.height can lead to the allocation of a small cursor object followed by a subsequent heap-based buffer overflow. A malicious privileged guest user could use this flaw to crash the QEMU process on the host or potentially execute arbitrary code within the context of the QEMU process.

Statement

Releases of Red Hat OpenStack Platform 15 and newer consume fixes directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Advanced Virtualization repository. A future update may address this issue in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and RHEL 8 Advanced Virtualization. The versions of qemu-kvm as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 are not affected by this flaw as they do not include support for QXL display device emulation.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score7.58.2N/A
Attack VectorLocalLocalN/A
Attack ComplexityHighLowN/A
Privileges RequiredHighHighN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeChangedChangedN/A
ConfidentialityHighHighN/A
Integrity ImpactHighHighN/A
Availability ImpactHighHighN/A

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Integrity

Technical Impact: Modify Memory; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands

Write operations could cause memory corruption. In some cases, an adversary can modify control data such as return addresses in order to execute unexpected code.

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

Attempting to access out-of-range, invalid, or unauthorized memory could cause the product to crash.

Other

Technical Impact: Unexpected State

Subsequent write operations can produce undefined or unexpected results.

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank Billy Jheng Bing Jhong (STAR Labs) for reporting this issue.

Frequently Asked Questions

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