CVE-2019-20175
** DISPUTED ** An issue was discovered in ide_dma_cb() in hw/ide/core.c in QEMU 2.4.0 through 4.2...
An issue was discovered in ide_dma_cb() in hw/ide/core.c in QEMU 2.4.0 through 4.2.0. The guest system can crash the QEMU process in the host system via a special SCSI_IOCTL_SEND_COMMAND. It hits an assertion that implies that the size of successful DMA transfers there must be a multiple of 512 (the size of a sector). NOTE: a member of the QEMU security team disputes the significance of this issue because a "privileged guest user has many ways to cause similar DoS effect, without triggering this assert.
Attack profile
How easy it is to exploit
- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges needed
- None
- User interaction
- None
What an attacker can affect
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
Exploit likelihood
What each source reports
NVD Score used
7.5
An issue was discovered in ide_dma_cb() in hw/ide/core.c in QEMU 2.4.0 through 4.2.0. The guest system can crash the QEMU process in the host system via a special SCSI_IOCTL_SEND_COMMAND. It hits an assertion that implies that the size of successful DMA transfers there must be a multiple of 512 (the size of a sector). NOTE: a member of the QEMU security team disputes the significance of this issue because a "privileged guest user has many ways to cause similar DoS effect, without triggering this assert.
- Record
CVE-2019-20175- CVSS 3.1
- 7.5 High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H - CVSS 2.0
- 5.0 Medium
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P - Weakness
- CWE-754
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
CVE List No score
An issue was discovered in ide_dma_cb() in hw/ide/core.c in QEMU 2.4.0 through 4.2.0. The guest system can crash the QEMU process in the host system via a special SCSI_IOCTL_SEND_COMMAND. It hits an assertion that implies that the size of successful DMA transfers there must be a multiple of 512 (the size of a sector). NOTE: a member of the QEMU security team disputes the significance of this issue because a "privileged guest user has many ways to cause similar DoS effect, without triggering this assert.
- Record
CVE-2019-20175- Updated
- 2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2019-10729 No score
An issue was discovered in ide_dma_cb() in hw/ide/core.c in QEMU 2.4.0 through 4.2.0. The guest system can crash the QEMU process in the host system via a special SCSI_IOCTL_SEND_COMMAND. It hits an assertion that implies that the size of successful DMA transfers there must be a multiple of 512 (the size of a sector). NOTE: a member of the QEMU security team disputes the significance of this issue because a "privileged guest user has many ways to cause similar DoS effect, without triggering this assert.
- Record
EUVD-2019-10729- Updated
- 2026-11-03
GitHub AdvisoriesGHSA-4r96-hw22-hhc7
7.5
** DISPUTED ** An issue was discovered in ide_dma_cb() in hw/ide/core.c in QEMU 2.4.0 through 4.2...
** DISPUTED ** An issue was discovered in ide_dma_cb() in hw/ide/core.c in QEMU 2.4.0 through 4.2.0. The guest system can crash the QEMU process in the host system via a special SCSI_IOCTL_SEND_COMMAND. It hits an assertion that implies that the size of successful DMA transfers there must be a multiple of 512 (the size of a sector). NOTE: a member of the QEMU security team disputes the significance of this issue because a "privileged guest user has many ways to cause similar DoS effect, without triggering this assert."
- Record
GHSA-4r96-hw22-hhc7- CVSS 3.1
- 7.5 High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H - Weakness
- CWE-754
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSV
7.5
An issue was discovered in ide_dma_cb() in hw/ide/core.c in QEMU 2.4.0 through 4.2.0. The guest system can crash the QEMU process in the host system via a special SCSI_IOCTL_SEND_COMMAND. It hits an assertion that implies that the size of successful DMA transfers there must be a multiple of 512 (the size of a sector). NOTE: a member of the QEMU security team disputes the significance of this issue because a "privileged guest user has many ways to cause similar DoS effect, without triggering this assert.
- Record
CVE-2019-20175- CVSS 3.1
- 7.5 High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H - Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSVDEBIAN-CVE-2019-20175
7.5
An issue was discovered in ide_dma_cb() in hw/ide/core.c in QEMU 2.4.0 through 4.2.0. The guest system can crash the QEMU process in the host system via a special SCSI_IOCTL_SEND_COMMAND. It hits an assertion that implies that the size of successful DMA transfers there must be a multiple of 512 (the size of a sector). NOTE: a member of the QEMU security team disputes the significance of this issue because a "privileged guest user has many ways to cause similar DoS effect, without triggering this assert.
- Record
DEBIAN-CVE-2019-20175- CVSS 3.1
- 7.5 High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H - Updated
- 2026-11-02
Affected products
Affected packages
History
| Recorded | Changed | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| aliases | EUVD | |
| first indexed | CVE List, GitHub Advisories, NVD, OSV |
Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.
In short
CVE-2019-20175 is a high vulnerability (CVSS 7.5) in Qemu, published December 31, 2019. Its validity is disputed. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 3.36%, the 88th percentile. Fixed in qemu 1:5.0-1.
References
lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2019-07/msg01651.html
lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2019-11/msg00597.html
lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2019-11/msg02165.html
mail-archive.com/qemu-devel%40nongnu.org/msg667396.html
lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2019-07/msg03869.html
nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-20175
mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg667396.html
github.com/advisories/GHSA-4r96-hw22-hhc7
security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2019-20175