Login Sign Up

CVE-2024-21263

6.1 MEDIUM
Denial of Service

📋 TL;DR

This vulnerability in Oracle VM VirtualBox allows authenticated attackers with local access to cause denial of service (crashes/hangs) and potentially read sensitive data from the application. It affects VirtualBox versions prior to 7.0.22 and 7.1.2. The risk primarily impacts users running vulnerable VirtualBox versions on their systems.

💻 Affected Systems

Products:
  • Oracle VM VirtualBox
Versions: All versions prior to 7.0.22 and all versions prior to 7.1.2
Operating Systems: Windows, Linux, macOS, Solaris
Default Config Vulnerable: ⚠️ Yes
Notes: Affects all default installations of vulnerable versions. Requires attacker to have local access and low privileges on the host system.

📦 What is this software?

Vm Virtualbox by Oracle

View all CVEs affecting Vm Virtualbox →

Vm Virtualbox by Oracle

View all CVEs affecting Vm Virtualbox →

⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact

🔴

Worst Case

Complete denial of service rendering VirtualBox unusable, combined with unauthorized access to sensitive VirtualBox configuration data or guest system information.

🟠

Likely Case

Local authenticated users causing VirtualBox crashes/hangs, disrupting virtual machine operations and potentially accessing limited VirtualBox data.

🟢

If Mitigated

Minimal impact if proper access controls limit local user privileges and VirtualBox is updated to patched versions.

🌐 Internet-Facing: LOW - Requires local access to the host system where VirtualBox runs, not directly exploitable over network.
🏢 Internal Only: MEDIUM - Internal users with local access to VirtualBox hosts can exploit this, particularly in shared/multi-user environments.

🎯 Exploit Status

Public PoC: ✅ No
Weaponized: UNKNOWN
Unauthenticated Exploit: ✅ No
Complexity: LOW

Oracle describes it as 'easily exploitable' but requires authenticated local access. No public exploit details available at this time.

🛠️ Fix & Mitigation

✅ Official Fix

Patch Version: 7.0.22 or 7.1.2

Vendor Advisory: https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuoct2024.html

Restart Required: Yes

Instructions:

1. Download VirtualBox 7.0.22 or 7.1.2 from Oracle website. 2. Close all running virtual machines. 3. Run the installer to upgrade. 4. Restart the host system. 5. Verify the new version is installed.

🔧 Temporary Workarounds

Restrict local user access

all

Limit which users have access to systems running VirtualBox to reduce attack surface

Run VirtualBox with minimal privileges

all

Configure VirtualBox to run with reduced privileges where possible

🧯 If You Can't Patch

  • Isolate VirtualBox hosts from general user access, restricting to authorized administrators only
  • Implement strict access controls and monitoring for systems running vulnerable VirtualBox versions

🔍 How to Verify

Check if Vulnerable:

Check VirtualBox version: On Windows, open VirtualBox and check Help > About. On Linux/macOS, run 'VBoxManage --version' in terminal.

Check Version:

VBoxManage --version

Verify Fix Applied:

Verify version is 7.0.22 or higher for 7.0.x branch, or 7.1.2 or higher for 7.1.x branch

📡 Detection & Monitoring

Log Indicators:

  • VirtualBox crash logs
  • Unexpected VirtualBox process termination
  • Access violations in VirtualBox logs

Network Indicators:

  • None - local exploit only

SIEM Query:

Search for VirtualBox process crashes or unexpected terminations on hosts running vulnerable versions

📊 Metadata

CVE ID: CVE-2024-21263
CVSS v3 Score: 6.1 (MEDIUM)
CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H
Published: October 15, 2024
Last Updated: October 18, 2024

🔗 References

📤 Share & Export

📄 Export Markdown 📋 Export JSON