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Medium

Security advisory

Type: advisorySources: OSVCVE: CVE-2021-20257

An infinite loop flaw was found in the e1000 NIC emulator of the QEMU. This issue occurs while processing transmits (tx) descriptors in process_tx_desc if various descriptor fields are initialized with invalid values. This flaw allows a guest to consume CPU cycles on the host, resulting in a denial of service. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.

Products
Not specified
Affected versions
Not specified
Fixed versions
Not specified
CVEs
CVE-2021-20257
Confirmed fixed CVEs
Not specified
Updated in this feed
1 Nov 2026, 09:25 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

CVE-2021-20257

core-osv · Original source

Published 16 Mar 2022, 15:15 UTC

An infinite loop flaw was found in the e1000 NIC emulator of the QEMU. This issue occurs while processing transmits (tx) descriptors in process_tx_desc if various descriptor fields are initialized with invalid values. This flaw allows a guest to consume CPU cycles on the host, resulting in a denial of service. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.

osv:CVE-2021-20257
Complete source record
{
  "id": "fc1ca7db179d062d90e99753c5821f91ed7f6026b74ecca8a99972cb4bdbb754",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-20257",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "CVE-2021-20257",
    "summary": "An infinite loop flaw was found in the e1000 NIC emulator of the QEMU. This issue occurs while processing transmits (tx) descriptors in process_tx_desc if various descriptor fields are initialized with invalid values. This flaw allows a guest to consume CPU cycles on the host, resulting in a denial of service. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.",
    "evidence": "osv:CVE-2021-20257",
    "products": [],
    "severity": "medium",
    "structured": {
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      "aliases": [
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              "cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
              "cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
              "cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8.0:*:*:*:advanced_virtualization:*:*:*"
            ],
            "vendor_product": "redhat:enterprise_linux",
            "extracted_events": [
              {
                "range": [
                  {
                    "introduced": "6.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "last_affected": "6.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "introduced": "8.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "last_affected": "8.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "introduced": "8.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "last_affected": "8.0"
                  }
                ],
                "source": "CPE_STRING"
              }
            ]
          },
          {
            "cpes": [
              "cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_for_ibm_z_systems:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
            ],
            "vendor_product": "redhat:enterprise_linux_for_ibm_z_systems",
            "extracted_events": [
              {
                "range": [
                  {
                    "introduced": "8.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "last_affected": "8.0"
                  }
                ],
                "source": "CPE_STRING"
              }
            ]
          },
          {
            "cpes": [
              "cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux_for_power_little_endian:8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
            ],
            "vendor_product": "redhat:enterprise_linux_for_power_little_endian",
            "extracted_events": [
              {
                "range": [
                  {
                    "introduced": "8.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "last_affected": "8.0"
                  }
                ],
                "source": "CPE_STRING"
              }
            ]
          },
          {
            "cpes": [
              "cpe:2.3:a:redhat:openstack_platform:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
              "cpe:2.3:a:redhat:openstack_platform:13.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"
            ],
            "vendor_product": "redhat:openstack_platform",
            "extracted_events": [
              {
                "range": [
                  {
                    "introduced": "10.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "last_affected": "10.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "introduced": "13.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "last_affected": "13.0"
                  }
                ],
                "source": "CPE_STRING"
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2021-20257",
        "evidence": "/id"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 443660,
  "published_at": "2022-03-16T15:15:09.983+00:00"
}