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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2021-4095 json

A NULL pointer dereference was found in the Linux kernel's KVM when dirty ring logging is enabled without an active vCPU context.

published 2022-03-08 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-33981

cvss
5.5
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 33%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A NULL pointer dereference was found in the Linux kernel's KVM when dirty ring logging is enabled without an active vCPU context. An unprivileged local attacker on the host may use this flaw to cause a kernel oops condition and thus a denial of service by issuing a KVM_XEN_HVM_SET_ATTR ioctl. This flaw affects Linux kernel versions prior to 5.17-rc1.

Patch / fix

  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.17.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-4095

  • kernel CBL-Mariner 2.0 5.15.37.1-2

azure linux advisories AZL-8965

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

  • linux-lts Arch Linux 5.15.2-1

arch linux advisories AVG-1741

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-2021-4095 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: KVM: NULL pointer dereference in kvm_dirty_ring_get() in virt/kvm/dirty_ring.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 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

0.39% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 33% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • openwall.com http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2022/01/17/1 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • bugzilla.redhat.com https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2031194 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 1.9 AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Affected products

  • n/a kernel

Classification

Weakness
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.