What is CVE-2017-15038?

CVE-2017-15038 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Qemu, classified under Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization (Race Condition). CVSS score: 5.6/10. Published 2017-10-10.

How severe is CVE-2017-15038?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.6 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Qemu

CVE-2017-15038

Race condition in the v9fs_xattrwalk function in hw/9pfs/9p.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) allows local guest OS users to obtain sensitive information from host heap memory via vectors related to reading extended attributes.

Vulnerability class: Race Condition

Published 2017-10-10 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.6 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (18.3th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 18th percentile — 18.3% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.003 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Qemu

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-362 — Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization (Race Condition)

References

lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/09/msg00007.html (mailing-list)
www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4213 (vendor-advisory)
lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2017-10/msg00729.html (mailing-list, Patch, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
usn.ubuntu.com/3575-1/ (vendor-advisory)
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/10/06/1 (mailing-list, Patch, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2017-15038?: CVE-2017-15038 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Qemu, classified under Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization (Race Condition). CVSS score: 5.6/10. Published 2017-10-10.
How severe is CVE-2017-15038?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.6 out of 10.