CVE-2023-3301: Triggerable assertion due to race condition in hot-unplug
Vulnerability summary
CVE-2023-3301 is a medium (CVSS 5.6) Reachable Assertion vulnerability in qemu. EPSS estimates a 0.26% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 17.6% of scored vulnerabilities.
Not severe (CVSS 5.6, local access); no exploitation reported by the 5 checked sources
Source freshness unavailable
How is this decided?Advisory lineage
Upstream 0 · Downstream 7 · Related 6Timeline
- 13-09-2023PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
- 13-02-2025Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.
Description
A flaw was found in QEMU. The async nature of hot-unplug enables a race scenario where the net device backend is cleared before the virtio-net pci frontend has been unplugged. A malicious guest could use this time window to trigger an assertion and cause a denial of service.
CVSS metrics
4 scores · 4 sources · 1 version- OSV · UbuntuEcosystem advisory · calculated5.6MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
- OSV · DebianEcosystem advisory · calculated5.6MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
- NVDNIST5.6MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS trend
Probability
0.26%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days
Percentile
18%
Versus all other CVEs
30-day change
No change 0.00 pp
From 0.26% on 04-10-2026
Known exploited
Compare KEV catalogs
CISA KEVNot in the CISA KEV catalog.
ENISA CNWNot in the ENISA CNW catalog.
CIRCLNot in the CIRCL catalog.
Public exploits
0 foundNo public exploits indexed.
Weaknesses
CWE · root cause- CWE-617Reachable AssertionThe product contains an assert() or similar statement that can be triggered by an attacker, which leads to an application exit or other behavior that is more severe than necessary.
- CWE-362Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper SynchronizationThe product contains a concurrent code sequence that requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence operating concurrently.
Affected systems
Known conditions: local access, low-privilege account, no user interaction (CVSS vector). Other conditions: not stated in public data.
Debian1 product
- qemu< 1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u1 | < 1:8.0.3+dfsg-1
Qemu1 product
- qemu≤ 8.0.3
Redhat1 product
- enterprise_linux8.0 | 9.0
Ubuntu1 product
- qemu< 1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.16
4 vendors · 4 products
References
8 links- security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20231020-0008/Third Party Advisory
