CVE-2017-2596 Denial of service in n/a
A flaw in the Linux kernel's KVM VMX emulation allows guest users to cause host memory exhaustion and denial of service.
- 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
What is CVE-2017-2596?
CVE-2017-2596 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 6 Feb 2017. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
The nested_vmx_check_vmptr function in arch/x86/kvm/vmx.c in the Linux kernel through 4.9.8 improperly emulates the VMXON instruction, which allows KVM L1 guest OS users to cause a denial of service (host OS memory consumption) by leveraging the mishandling of page references.
Weakness: CWE-772
Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-2596?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2017-2596?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2017-2596 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-2596 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2017-2596, GHSA-pcw3-w336-m348, UBUNTU-CVE-2017-2596.