CVE-2018-8438 Denial of service in Windows 10

Medium 6.8 Published 13 Sep 2018 Updated 5 Aug 2024

A privileged user in a guest OS can cause a denial of service on the host via improper input validation in the Hyper-V Network Switch.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: An administrator
Attackable: Over the internet
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: None listed

What is CVE-2018-8438?

CVE-2018-8438 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Microsoft Windows 10, published on 13 Sep 2018. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

Official description

A denial of service vulnerability exists when Microsoft Hyper-V Network Switch on a host server fails to properly validate input from a privileged user on a guest operating system, aka "Windows Hyper-V Denial of Service Vulnerability." This affects Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT 8.1, Windows Server 2016, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 10 Servers. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2018-8436, CVE-2018-8437.

Weakness: CWE-20

Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-8438?

It affects 4 products.

Products include Microsoft Windows 10, Microsoft Windows 8.1, Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2016.

How do I fix CVE-2018-8438?

No fix has been published for CVE-2018-8438 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

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-2018-8438 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-8438 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Microsoft Windows 10 vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as GHSA-6fcm-m3gp-p67j.