CVE-2016-9914

Memory leak in hw/9pfs/9p.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) allows local privileged guest OS users to cause a denial of service (host memory consumption and possibly QEMU process crash) by leveraging a missing cleanup operation in FileOperations.

Published: 2016-12-29 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2016-9914 is rated Low Risk (38.3/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.43%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2016-9914

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.06% 0.43% +0.37%
2 2023-03-07 1.03% 0.06% -0.97%
3 2022-02-04 — 1.03% —

Full EPSS history (3 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2016-9914

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 2.0 4.0 [email protected]
4.9 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:C)
Complete availability impact.
 3.9 6.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2016-9914

OS Trackers for CVE-2016-9914

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2016-9914 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (qemu), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-9914
gentoo normal CVE-2016-9914: 1 GLSA(s) (201701-49), 1 atom(s) (app-emulation/qemu); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2016-9914
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2016-9914
suse low CVE-2016-9914 severity low: SUSE including 27 source package names (kvm, qemu, …), 166 product×package rows across 19 product lines (HPE Helion OpenStack 8, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP1, … (19 product lines)): Known Not Affected 166. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2016-9914/
ubuntu low CVE-2016-9914 low priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (qemu, qemu-kvm), 28 status rows across 14 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, precise, trusty, upstream, xenial, yakkety, zesty): DNE 13, released 12, needed 2, ignored 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2016-9914

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2016-9914

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
qemu qemu <= 2.7.1 cpe:2.3:a:qemu:qemu:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
qemu qemu 2.8.0 cpe:2.3:a:qemu:qemu:2.8.0:rc0:*:*:*:*:*:*
qemu qemu 2.8.0 cpe:2.3:a:qemu:qemu:2.8.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 8.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2016-9914

cvelogic Threat Intelligence