CVE-2026-21981

Vulnerability in the Oracle VM VirtualBox product of Oracle Virtualization (component: Core). Supported versions that are affected are 7.1.14 and 7.2.4. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows high privileged attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle VM VirtualBox executes to compromise Oracle VM VirtualBox. While the vulnerability is in Oracle VM VirtualBox, attacks may significantly impact additional products (scope change). Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized read access to a subset of Oracle VM VirtualBox accessible data and unauthorized ability to cause a partial denial of service (partial DOS) of Oracle VM VirtualBox. CVSS 3.1 Base Score 4.6 (Confidentiality and Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:L).

Published: 2026-01-20 Last update: 2026-01-29 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2026-21981 is rated Low Risk (18.8/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.01%). Low composite risk—no urgent action required; patch on your normal maintenance cycle and revisit priority if CVSS or EPSS increases.

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-2026-21981

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 2026-01-21 — 0.01% —

Full EPSS history (1 record total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2026-21981

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.6 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:L 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:H)
They need powerful rights—admin, root, or similar—before this pays off.
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:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
 1.5 2.7 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2026-21981

OS Trackers for CVE-2026-21981

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2026-21981 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (virtualbox), 1 status rows across 1 suites (sid): resolved 1. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-21981
ubuntu medium CVE-2026-21981 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (virtualbox), 7 status rows across 7 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, questing, upstream, xenial): needs-triage 7. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-21981

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2026-21981

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
oracle vm_virtualbox 7.1.14 cpe:2.3:a:oracle:vm_virtualbox:7.1.14:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
oracle vm_virtualbox 7.2.4 cpe:2.3:a:oracle:vm_virtualbox:7.2.4:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2026-21981

cvelogic Threat Intelligence