What is CVE-2017-5525?

CVE-2017-5525 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Qemu, classified under Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime. CVSS score: 6.5/10. Published 2017-03-15.

How severe is CVE-2017-5525?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.5 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Qemu

CVE-2017-5525

Memory leak in hw/audio/ac97.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) allows local guest OS privileged users to cause a denial of service (host memory consumption and QEMU process crash) via a large number of device unplug operations.

Published 2017-03-15 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.004 (31.6th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 32nd percentile — 31.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.004 · newest: 0.004 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Qemu
Debian Linux — versions 8.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-401 — Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

References

www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/01/18/7 (mailing-list, Patch, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/09/msg00007.html (mailing-list, Third Party Advisory)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/201702-28 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
www.securityfocus.com/bid/95671 (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry)
git.qemu-project.org/
www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/01/17/19 (mailing-list, Patch, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2017-5525?: CVE-2017-5525 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Qemu, classified under Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime. CVSS score: 6.5/10. Published 2017-03-15.
How severe is CVE-2017-5525?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.5 out of 10.