CVE-2015-7512
Qemu: net: pcnet: buffer overflow in non-loopback mode
Severity
ImportantRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 2.0
Review impact separately from score.
Published · November 30, 2015
Updated · June 27, 2026
Description
A buffer overflow flaw was found in the way QEMU's AMD PC-Net II emulation validated certain received packets from a remote host in non-loopback mode. A remote, unprivileged attacker could potentially use this flaw to execute arbitrary code on the host with the privileges of the QEMU process. Note that to exploit this flaw, the guest network interface must have a large MTU limit.
Statement
This issue does not affect the versions of the qemu-kvm packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 as they do not enable the pcnet backend driver.
This issue does not affect the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 based versions of the qemu-kvm-rhev packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.
This issue affects the versions of the kvm and xen packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, the versions of the qemu-kvm packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, and the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 based versions of qemu-kvm-rhev packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3. Future updates for the respective releases may address this flaw.
Please note that AMD PCNet adapter has to be explicitly enabled per-guest as it is not enabled in default configuration and is not supported by Red Hat in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (for a list of supported devices please consult https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Virtualization_Administration_Guide/sect-whitelist-device-options.html).
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is now in Production 3 Phase of the support and maintenance life cycle. Though this has been rated as having Important security impact and is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates. For additional information, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle: https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/.
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
No mitigation is specified in collected source.
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 2.0 · 7.6AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
CWE-122 · Heap-based Buffer Overflow