Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian
CVE-2015-8745
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedQEMU (aka Quick Emulator) built with a VMWARE VMXNET3 paravirtual NIC emulator support is vulnerable to crash issue. It could occur while reading Interrupt Mask Registers (IMR). A privileged (CAP_SYS_RAWIO) guest user could use this flaw to crash the QEMU process instance resulting in DoS.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceQEMU built with VMWARE VMXNET3 paravirtual NIC emulator contains a crash vulnerability when reading Interrupt Mask Registers (IMR). A privileged guest user with CAP_SYS_RAWIO can trigger improper memory handling during IMR read operations, causing the QEMU process to crash and resulting in denial of service.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
Debian LinuxOperating system
= 8.0<= 2.4.1CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify installed QEMU versionRun 'qemu-system-x86_64 --version' or 'qemu --version' to determine the QEMU version installed on the hostAffected if The installed version is 2.4.1 or lower (versions up to and including 2.4.1 are affected)
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Verify VMXNET3 paravirtual NIC is in useInspect the QEMU command line or libvirt domain XML for '-net vmware3' or 'model name="vmxnet3"' configuration indicating a VMXNET3 network device is attached to a guestAffected if A VMXNET3 paravirtual NIC is assigned to any virtual machine
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Confirm guest privileged accessReview guest virtual machine configurations to determine if they run with elevated privileges or have CAP_SYS_RAWIO capability assignedAffected if The guest operating system has privileged user access with CAP_SYS_RAWIO capability or equivalent administrative rights that permit direct hardware I/O operations
A system is affected if it runs QEMU version 2.4.1 or lower with an active VMXNET3 paravirtual NIC assigned to a guest that has privileged access capable of performing raw I/O operations.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataApply the upstream QEMU patch for CVE-2015-8745 which corrects the IMR read handling in the VMXNET3 emulator; recompile and deploy the patched QEMU version, or upgrade to a QEMU version that includes the fix.
Fix this in Debian Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA3.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,416.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2015-8745 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2015-8745 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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