CVE-2023-22016 in VM VirtualBox
Summary
by MITRE • 07/19/2023
Vulnerability in the Oracle VM VirtualBox product of Oracle Virtualization (component: Core). Supported versions that are affected are Prior to 6.1.46 and Prior to 7.0.10. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows high privileged attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle VM VirtualBox executes to compromise Oracle VM VirtualBox. Successful attacks require human interaction from a person other than the attacker. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized ability to cause a hang or frequently repeatable crash (complete DOS) of Oracle VM VirtualBox. CVSS 3.1 Base Score 4.2 (Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/14/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2023-22016 represents a significant availability risk within Oracle VM VirtualBox virtualization platform, specifically affecting the Core component of the software. This flaw exists in versions prior to 6.1.46 and 7.0.10, indicating a widespread impact across multiple release lines of the virtualization solution. The vulnerability's classification as easily exploitable suggests that attackers with high-privileged access to the underlying infrastructure where VirtualBox operates can leverage this weakness to compromise the virtualization environment. The attack vector requires local access with elevated privileges, meaning that an attacker must already have substantial access rights to the system hosting the virtualization software, which aligns with the CVSS base score of 4.2 and availability impact designation.
The technical nature of this vulnerability manifests as a complete denial of service condition that can cause VirtualBox to hang or repeatedly crash, effectively rendering the virtualization platform unusable for its intended purpose. This type of vulnerability falls under the Common Weakness Enumeration category of insufficient error handling or resource management issues, where the system fails to properly handle abnormal conditions or resource exhaustion scenarios. The requirement for human interaction from someone other than the attacker indicates that while the initial exploitation may be automated, some form of user intervention is necessary to complete the attack chain, potentially involving a legitimate user performing actions that trigger the vulnerability.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability poses a serious threat to virtualized environments where Oracle VM VirtualBox serves as the primary virtualization solution. Organizations relying on VirtualBox for development, testing, or production environments face potential service disruption that could affect multiple virtual machines and the applications running within them. The complete denial of service condition means that administrators cannot simply restart the service to recover, as the underlying issue appears to be a fundamental stability problem in how the software handles certain conditions. This vulnerability directly impacts the availability component of the CIA triad, potentially affecting business continuity and operational efficiency.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2023-22016 should prioritize immediate patching of affected VirtualBox installations to versions 6.1.46 or 7.0.10, respectively, as these releases contain the necessary fixes for the identified stability issues. Organizations should also implement monitoring solutions to detect unusual system behavior that might indicate exploitation attempts, particularly focusing on system logs and virtualization platform metrics. The vulnerability's classification under the ATT&CK framework would likely map to the privilege escalation and denial of service tactics, where attackers leverage elevated privileges to cause system instability. Additionally, implementing network segmentation and access controls to limit who can access the VirtualBox infrastructure can reduce the attack surface, while regular security assessments of virtualization environments can help identify similar vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.