CVE-2019-20808
NixOS vulnerability analysis and mitigation

Overview

An out-of-bounds read vulnerability (CVE-2019-20808) was discovered in QEMU 4.1.0's ATI VGA implementation. The vulnerability was found in the ati_cursor_define() function while handling MMIO write operations through the ati_mm_write() callback. This vulnerability was introduced with QEMU version 4.0.0 when ATI VGA emulation support was added (RedHat Bugzilla).

Technical details

The vulnerability exists in the ATI VGA implementation within QEMU, specifically in the ati_cursor_define() function when processing MMIO write operations. The issue has been assigned a CVSS v3.1 score of 6.5 (MEDIUM) with the vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H (NetApp Advisory).

Impact

If successfully exploited, this vulnerability could allow a malicious guest to crash the QEMU process, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition (CVE Mitre).

Exploitability

The vulnerability requires local access with low complexity and low privileges to exploit. No user interaction is required for exploitation (NetApp Advisory).

Mitigation and workarounds

The vulnerability was fixed in QEMU version 4.2.0. A patch was released and is available through the upstream commit aab0e2a661b2b6bf7915c0aefe807fb60d6d9d13 (RedHat Bugzilla).

Additional resources


SourceThis report was generated using AI

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