# CVE-2023-1544: Qemu: pvrdma: out-of-bounds read in pvrdma_ring_next_elem_read()

> A crafted guest driver can trigger an out-of-bounds read in QEMU's pvrdma device, causing a crash and denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.0 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 23 Mar 2023
- **Updated:** 3 Nov 2025
- **Also known as:** AZL-25807, AZL-35166, BELL-CVE-2023-1544, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-1544, GHSA-8j56-863j-pww9, OESA-2023-1875, OESA-2023-1894, OESA-2023-1895, OESA-2023-1896, OESA-2023-1897, SUSE-SU-2025:4523-1, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-1544

## What is CVE-2023-1544?

CVE-2023-1544 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Fedoraproject Fedora, published on 23 Mar 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A flaw was found in the QEMU implementation of VMWare's paravirtual RDMA device. This flaw allows a crafted guest driver to allocate and initialize a huge number of page tables to be used as a ring of descriptors for CQ and async events, potentially leading to an out-of-bounds read and crash of QEMU.

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling), CWE-125 (Out-of-bounds Read)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-1544?

It affects 2 products.


| Package | Ecosystem | Affected | Fixed in |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `qemu` | SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5-LTSS | All versions | 3.1.1.1-81.1 |
| `qemu` | SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server LTSS Extended Security 12 SP5 | All versions | 3.1.1.1-81.1 |

Products: Fedoraproject Fedora, Qemu Qemu.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-1544?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-1544 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-1544 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Fedoraproject Fedora

- [CVE-2024-4577](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-4577/): PHP-CGI OS Command Injection (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2021-39226](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-39226/): Grafana Authentication Bypass (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2019-5544](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-5544/): VMware ESXi and Horizon DaaS OpenSLP Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2024-4947](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-4947/): Google Chromium V8 Type Confusion (critical 9.6, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2024-4671](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-4671/): Google Chromium Visuals Use-After-Free (critical 9.6, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-1544 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-1544 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Fedoraproject Fedora, published on 23 Mar 2023. 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-2023-1544 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Fedoraproject Fedora. 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-2023-1544/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-1544/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-1544
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-1544
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-1544

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-1544/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.