NULL pointer dereference in Qemu

CVE-2021-20196

A NULL pointer dereference flaw was found in the floppy disk emulator of QEMU. This issue occurs while processing read/write ioport commands if the selected floppy drive is not initialized with a block device. This flaw allows a privileged guest user to crash the QEMU process on the host, resulting in a denial of service. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.

Published · last modified .

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: 0.005 (38.9th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 39th percentile — 38.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2021-20196: held from 0.005 to 0.005.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.005 · newest: 0.005 · change: 0.000

Affected products

  • Qemu — versions 5.2.0
  • Debian Linux — versions 9.0, 10.0
  • Qemu — versions vulnerable up to (including) qemu 5.2.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-20196?
CVE-2021-20196 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Qemu, classified under NULL Pointer Dereference. CVSS score: 6.5/10. Published 2021-05-26.
How severe is CVE-2021-20196?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.5 out of 10.
Is CVE-2021-20196 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.