CVE-2021-3750
CWE-416Published: May 2, 2022· Updated: Jun 17, 2026
Official Description
A DMA reentrancy issue was found in the USB EHCI controller emulation of QEMU. EHCI does not verify if the Buffer Pointer overlaps with its MMIO region when it transfers the USB packets. Crafted content may be written to the controller's registers and trigger undesirable actions (such as reset) while the device is still transferring packets. This can ultimately lead to a use-after-free issue. A malicious guest could use this flaw to crash the QEMU process on the host, resulting in a denial of service condition, or potentially execute arbitrary code within the context of the QEMU process on the host. This flaw affects QEMU versions before 7.0.0.
Technical Analysis
CVE-2021-3750 requires local access, meaning attackers must already have a foothold on the target system.
Exploitation requires high privileges, which limits the exposure to scenarios where an attacker has already gained initial access.
A successful exploit results in complete confidentiality breach (data exposure), full integrity compromise (data manipulation), availability disruption (denial of service), with a CVSS base score of 8.2.
The vulnerability has a "Changed" scope, meaning successful exploitation can impact components beyond the vulnerable component itself — such as the host operating system or adjacent services.
From a weakness classification perspective (CWE-416): Use-after-free vulnerabilities involve accessing memory after it has been freed, often enabling arbitrary code execution.
CVSS v3.1 Vector Breakdown
Affected Vendors & Products
Exploit & PoC Resources
Official Patches & Advisories
All References (10)
Quick Facts
Related CVEs (CWE-416)
Recommended Actions
- →Apply vendor patches immediately
- →Monitor CVE-2021-3750 in threat intel feeds
- →Review IDS/IPS signatures for exploitation attempts