CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2019-10168 — Redhat Libvirt security vulnerability

High CVSS 8.8

The virConnectBaselineHypervisorCPU() and virConnectCompareHypervisorCPU() libvirt APIs, 4.x.x before 4.10.1 and 5.x.x before 5.4.1, accept an "emulator" argument to specify the program providing emulation for a domain. Since v1.2.19, libvirt will execute that program to probe the domain's capabilities. Read-only clients could specify an arbitrary path for this argument, causing libvirtd to execute a crafted executable with its own privileges.

Severity
High
CVSS
8.8 (3.0)
Published
2019-08-02
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-250, CWE-284, CWE-22

Affected products

  • redhat / libvirt
  • redhat / enterprise_linux / 7.0
  • redhat / enterprise_linux / 8.0
  • redhat / enterprise_linux_desktop / 6.0
  • redhat / enterprise_linux_desktop / 7.0
  • redhat / enterprise_linux_server / 6.0

Showing 6 representative product identities from 14 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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