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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2021-38160 json

In drivers/char/virtio_console.c in the Linux kernel before 5.13.4, data corruption or loss can be triggered by an untrusted device that su…

published 2021-08-07 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-24630

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 35%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In drivers/char/virtio_console.c in the Linux kernel before 5.13.4, data corruption or loss can be triggered by an untrusted device that supplies a buf->len value exceeding the buffer size. NOTE: the vendor indicates that the cited data corruption is not a vulnerability in any existing use case; the length validation was added solely for robustness in the face of anomalous host OS behavior

Patch / fix

  • linux linux_kernel 4.4.276, 4.9.276, 4.14.240, 4.19.198, 5.4.134, 5.10.52, 5.12.19, 5.13.4
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.14.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-38160

  • linux Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-156.163
  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-88.99
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1111.118
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1057.60
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1053.57
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1053.56
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1005.6
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1099.101

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-38160

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.5 5.14.21-150500.13.82.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Micro 5.5 5.14.21-150500.13.82.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES 12 SP4-LTSS, OpenStack Cloud Crowbar 9 +1 more 4.12.14-95.83.2
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES 12 SP4-LTSS, OpenStack Cloud Crowbar 9 +1 more 4.12.14-95.83.2
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES 12 SP4-LTSS, SLE Live Patching 12 SP4 +3 more 4.12.14-95.83.2
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 4.12.14-150.78.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 4.12.14-150.78.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE Live Patching 15 +3 more 4.12.14-150.78.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:0229-1SUSE-SU-2021:3972-1SUSE-SU-2021:3969-1SUSE-SU-2021:3935-1SUSE-SU-2021:3929-1SUSE-SU-2021:3876-1

  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 15.3 4.12.14-197.102.2
  • kernel-vanilla openSUSE Leap 15.3 4.12.14-197.102.2
  • kernel-kvmsmall openSUSE Leap 15.3 4.12.14-197.102.2
  • kernel-zfcpdump openSUSE Leap 15.3 4.12.14-197.102.2
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 15.3 5.3.18-59.24.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 15.3 5.3.18-59.24.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 15.3 5.3.18-59.24.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 15.3 5.3.18-59.24.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2021:3876-1openSUSE-SU-2021:3205-1openSUSE-SU-2021:3179-1openSUSE-SU-2021:1271-1

  • kernel CBL-Mariner 2.0 5.10.78.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-6580

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-38160 updated cvss 0.0

kernel: data corruption or loss can be triggered by an untrusted device that supplies a buf->len value exceeding the buffer size in drivers/char/virtio_console.c

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-alt, python-perf, +9 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +82 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.41% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 35% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.2 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-120 Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.