# CVE-2016-9912: Denial of service in n/a

> A guest user can cause host memory leakage and denial of service in QEMU when the Virtio GPU device emulator is enabled.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 23 Dec 2016
- **Updated:** 6 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2016-9912, GHSA-5x35-9r35-66x7, UBUNTU-CVE-2016-9912

## What is CVE-2016-9912?

CVE-2016-9912 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Qemu Qemu, published on 23 Dec 2016. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Quick Emulator (Qemu) built with the Virtio GPU Device emulator support is vulnerable to a memory leakage issue. It could occur while destroying gpu resource object in 'virtio_gpu_resource_destroy'. A guest user/process could use this flaw to leak host memory bytes, resulting in DoS for a host.

Weakness: CWE-772 (Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2016-9912?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Qemu Qemu.

## How do I fix CVE-2016-9912?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2016-9912 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2016-9912 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Qemu Qemu

- [CVE-2022-36648](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-36648/): Null dereference in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2015-8556](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-8556/): Race condition in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2009-3616](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-3616/): Use after free in n/a (critical 9.9)
- [CVE-2019-12928](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-12928/): Command injection in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2019-12929](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-12929/): Command injection in n/a (critical 9.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2016-9912 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2016-9912 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Qemu Qemu, published on 23 Dec 2016. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2016-9912 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Qemu Qemu. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-9912/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-9912/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2016-9912
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2016-9912
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2016-9912

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-9912/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.