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CVE-2016-6490: QEMU can crash when guest admin sends zero‑length buffer

CVE-2016-6490 · published 9 years ago

Summary

The QEMU virtual machine program on Debian can enter an endless loop and stop working if a user inside the virtual machine with administrator rights sends a data request that reports a zero length. This can shut down the virtual machine and any services it provides. Install the latest QEMU updates from Debian’s package repository to fix the issue.

What to do

Update debian qemu to version 1:2.6+dfsg-3.1.

Affected software

Ecosystem	Vendor	Product	Affected versions
Debian:12	debian	qemu	< 1:2.6+dfsg-3.1 Fix: upgrade to 1:2.6+dfsg-3.1
Debian:13	debian	qemu	< 1:2.6+dfsg-3.1 Fix: upgrade to 1:2.6+dfsg-3.1
Debian:14	debian	qemu	< 1:2.6+dfsg-3.1 Fix: upgrade to 1:2.6+dfsg-3.1
–	qemu	qemu	<= 2.6.2 2.7.0 `cpe:2.3:a:qemu:qemu::::::::`

Original advisory text

The virtqueue_map_desc function in hw/virtio/virtio.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) allows local guest OS administrators to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and QEMU process crash) via a zer...

References

https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-6490 Vendor Advisory
http://git.qemu.org/?p=qemu.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=1e7aed70144b4673fc26e73062064b672...
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/07/28/4 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/07/28/9 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2016-07/msg06246.html Patch Third Party Advisory
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201609-01 Third Party Advisory

Severity

4.4 Medium

Exploitation

<1% chance of attack within 30 days

Type

CWE-120Classic Buffer Overflow

Timeline

Published10 Dec 2016

Updated4 Nov 2026

First seen22 Sep 2026

Sources

DEBIAN-CVE-2016-6490 · OSV

CVE-2016-6490 · NVD

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