CVE-2026-21986 Denial of service in Oracle VM VirtualBox
An unauthenticated attacker with local access can cause a complete denial of service in Oracle VM VirtualBox on Windows VMs.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-21986?
CVE-2026-21986 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Oracle Vm Virtualbox, published on 20 Jan 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Vulnerability in the Oracle VM VirtualBox product of Oracle Virtualization (component: Core). Supported versions that are affected are 7.1.14 and 7.2.4. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows unauthenticated attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle VM VirtualBox executes to compromise Oracle VM VirtualBox. While the vulnerability is in Oracle VM VirtualBox, attacks may significantly impact additional products (scope change). Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized ability to cause a hang or frequently repeatable crash (complete DOS) of Oracle VM VirtualBox. Note: This vulnerability applies to Windows VMs only. CVSS 3.1 Base Score 7.1 (Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H).
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-21986?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Oracle Vm Virtualbox.
How do I fix CVE-2026-21986?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-21986 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-2026-21986 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-21986 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Public exploit code: 1 proofs of concept on GitHub.
Other vulnerabilities in Oracle Vm Virtualbox
- CVE-2016-5605 Unspecified vulnerability in the Oracle VM VirtualBox component before 5.1.4 in Oracle Virtualization allows remote attackers to affect conf
- CVE-2018-3294 Privilege escalation in VM VirtualBox
- CVE-2024-21112 Privilege escalation in VM VirtualBox
- CVE-2024-21113 Privilege escalation in VM VirtualBox
- CVE-2024-21114 Privilege escalation in VM VirtualBox
Sources
Also known as GHSA-pmq9-qqvr-3fjc, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-21986.