Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-1544

Memory Safety in Qemu ≤ 7.2.0

Published
23 March 2023
Modified
03 November 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 6.0
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0031 23th percentile
Risk Priority 40 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-1544 is a medium-severity Out-of-bounds Read (CWE-125) vulnerability in Qemu Qemu. Its CVSS base score is 6.0 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Network Denial of Service (T1498); ranked at the 23th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

A flaw was found in the QEMU implementation of VMWare's paravirtual RDMA device. This flaw allows a crafted guest driver to allocate and initialize a huge number of page tables to be used as a ring of descriptors for CQ…

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and async events, potentially leading to an out-of-bounds read and crash of QEMU.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1498 Network Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Network Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of targeted resources to users.
T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
T1499.003 Application Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may target resource intensive features of applications to cause a denial of service (DoS), denying availability to those applications.
T1498.001 Direct Network Flood Impact
Adversaries may attempt to cause a denial of service (DoS) by directly sending a high-volume of network traffic to a target.
T1498.002 Reflection Amplification Impact
Adversaries may attempt to cause a denial of service (DoS) by reflecting a high-volume of network traffic to a target.
T1499.001 OS Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may launch a denial of service (DoS) attack targeting an endpoint's operating system (OS).
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-4135Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2023-25193Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2023-45129Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2023-44271Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2024-23836Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2023-29408Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2024-23837Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2024-6505Same product: Qemu Qemu
CVE-2023-51791Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2023-22338Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora

Affected Assets

qemu
qemu
≤ 7.2.0
fedoraproject
fedora
37

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 5 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V15.4.4

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-770

This control implements explicit throttling on session allocation, addressing the weakness of allocating resources without limits.

addresses: CWE-770

Plan testing exercises resource allocation limits and throttling during simulated failures, directly addressing weaknesses that allow unbounded resource use.

addresses: CWE-770

Contingency plan updates ensure recovery strategies address unbounded resource allocation, making it harder for attackers to exploit lack of throttling to cause prolonged outages.

addresses: CWE-770

Provides continuity when unbounded resource allocation at the primary site leads to exhaustion and downtime.

addresses: CWE-770

Alternate services allow operations to continue when primary allocation of resources lacks limits or throttling.

addresses: CWE-770

Explicit planning of security-related actions requires defining limits, windows, and resource allocations, making allocation without throttling far less likely.

addresses: CWE-770

Measures of performance include tracking allocation behavior and throttling effectiveness, reducing the window for resource exhaustion attacks.

addresses: CWE-770

Imposes an inactivity-based limit on network resource allocation, throttling the number of concurrently held connections.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.IR-04 mostly match
degrades

Monitoring capacity and taking action to maintain availability directly reduces unchecked resource allocation.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure-development practices such as bounds checking and memory-safe languages directly prevent out-of-bounds reads.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover instances of out-of-bounds reads after code is deployed.

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Routine patching replaces vulnerable code containing out-of-bounds read flaws.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Baseline comparison of CPU, memory and bandwidth usage helps surface uncontrolled resource allocations before they cause service degradation.

finds

Security testing in development and acceptance includes fuzzing and static analysis that detect out-of-bounds read defects before release.

prevents

Capacity projections and elasticity measures ensure that allocation requests are bounded and can be throttled, reducing the window in which an attacker can force unbounded resource reservations.

mitigates

Defining retention periods and deletion schedules for backup copies prevents indefinite accumulation of data on storage media without corresponding resource-management controls.

mitigates

Architectural redundancy and automatic failover limit the impact of an attacker who forces excessive allocations, because spare capacity can absorb the load until the primary instance recovers.

A.8.15 Logging partial match
finds

Logging can record evidence of an out-of-bounds read but does not prevent the weakness itself.

Hardening callouts derived

Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).

Oracle Linux 8 (2 rules)
  • V-248552 OL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770
  • V-248553 OL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic are terminated after 10 minutes of becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770
Oracle Linux 9 (2 rules)
  • V-271710 OL 9 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic are terminated after 10 minutes of becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770
  • V-271709 OL 9 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770
RHEL 8 (1 rule)
  • V-230244 RHEL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770

References