QemuApplication

CVE-2019-12929

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.0 Published 2019-06-24
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 4.0.0 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

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 · unedited
The QMP guest_exec command in QEMU 4.0.0 and earlier is prone to OS command injection, which allows the attacker to achieve code execution, denial of service, or information disclosure by sending a crafted QMP command to the listening server. Note: This has been disputed as a non-issue since QEMU's -qmp interface is meant to be used by trusted users. If one is able to access this interface via a tcp socket open to the internet, then it is an insecure configuration issue

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
How this class of weakness works · CWE-78

User input reaches a shell or system command without being fully separated from the command itself, so an attacker can append their own instructions. Because these run with the application's privileges, it often means full control of the host. The lasting fix is to avoid the shell entirely — call APIs directly and pass arguments as data, never as concatenated strings.

General guidance for the os command injection 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
QemuApplication
Affected:<= 4.0.0

CVSS 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
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/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 · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 4.0.0
Recommended fix High confidence

QEMU 4.1.0 or later (if upgrading for defense-in-depth)

  1. Do not expose the QMP (QEMU Monitor Protocol) socket to untrusted networks or the internet; bind it only to localhost or trusted internal interfaces
  2. If network access to QMP is required, use Unix sockets instead of TCP sockets
  3. Restrict QMP access to trusted users only, as the interface is designed for trusted management operations
  4. Use firewall rules to prevent unauthorized access to QMP ports
  5. If QMP must be used over network, implement TLS encryption and authentication

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can identify the exact fixed release, upgrade, and verify it in staging — typical engagement from $3,550. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2019-12929 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data