CVE-2017-2615
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 · uneditedQuick emulator (QEMU) built with the Cirrus CLGD 54xx VGA emulator support is vulnerable to an out-of-bounds access issue. It could occur while copying VGA data via bitblt copy in backward mode. A privileged user inside a guest could use this flaw to crash the QEMU process resulting in DoS or potentially execute arbitrary code on the host with privileges of QEMU process on the host.
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 analysisThe program writes past the bounds of a buffer, overwriting adjacent memory an attacker can turn to their advantage. Crafted input can overwrite control data and redirect execution. Remediation is validating every index and length before a write, plus modern memory-safety mitigations.
General guidance for the out-of-bounds write class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
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= 6.0.2= 6.2.0= 6.5= 7.0= 7.1= 5.0= 6.0= 7.0= 8= 9= 10= 7.0= 6.0= 7.0= 6.0= 7.0= 7.3= 7.4= 7.3= 7.4= 7.5= 6.0= 7.0CVSS 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
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- High
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
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.
dbcve · scopedQEMU version containing the fix (2.8.1, 2.9.0, or later stable releases; or vendor-supplied patched versions like RHEL QEMU-KVM 2.6.0-41)
- Identify the QEMU/KVM packages installed on the system using package manager (e.g., 'rpm -qa | grep qemu' or 'dpkg -l | grep qemu')
- For Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems: Run 'yum update qemu-kvm' or 'yum update qemu-kvm-rhev' to apply security updates
- For Debian systems: Run 'apt-get update && apt-get install qemu' to get updated packages
- For XenServer: Upgrade to XenServer 6.5 SP1, 7.0, or later version
- For OpenStack: Upgrade to OpenStack Newton or later release
- After updating, restart all running QEMU/KVM virtual machines (requires guest reboot) to load the patched QEMU binaries
- Verify the fix by checking the QEMU version matches a version containing the upstream fix (QEMU 2.8.1, 2.9.0, or later stable releases with CVE-2017-2615 resolved)
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-2615 — 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 sources- lists.gnu.org
- lists.gnu.org
- rhn.redhat.com
- rhn.redhat.com
- rhn.redhat.com
- rhn.redhat.com
- rhn.redhat.com
- rhn.redhat.com
- rhn.redhat.com
- rhn.redhat.com
- rhn.redhat.com
- rhn.redhat.com
- rhn.redhat.com
- rhn.redhat.com
- www.openwall.com
- www.securityfocus.com
- www.securitytracker.com
- bugzilla.redhat.com
- security.gentoo.org
- security.gentoo.org
- support.citrix.com
- lists.debian.org
- nvd.nist.gov
Practitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2017-2615 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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