CVE-2018-16872
QEMU: usb-mtp: path traversal by host filesystem manipulation in Media Transfer Protocol (MTP)
Severity
LowRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.0
Review impact separately from score.
Published · December 13, 2018
Updated · November 22, 2025
Description
A flaw was found in QEMU's Media Transfer Protocol (MTP). The code opening files in usb_mtp_get_object and usb_mtp_get_partial_object and directories in usb_mtp_object_readdir doesn't consider that the underlying filesystem may have changed since the time lstat(2) was called in usb_mtp_object_alloc, a classical TOCTTOU problem. An attacker with write access to the host filesystem, shared with a guest, can use this property to navigate the host filesystem in the context of the QEMU process and read any file the QEMU process has access to. Access to the filesystem may be local or via a network share protocol such as CIFS.
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 3.0 · 5CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L
CWE-367 · Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition