CVE-2026-71151 in VM VirtualBox
Summary
by MITRE • 08/19/2026
Vulnerability in the Oracle VM VirtualBox product of Oracle Virtualization (component: Core). The supported version that is affected is 7.2.14. Difficult to exploit vulnerability allows low privileged attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle VM VirtualBox executes to compromise Oracle VM VirtualBox. While the vulnerability is in Oracle VM VirtualBox, attacks may significantly impact additional products (scope change). Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized access to critical data or complete access to all Oracle VM VirtualBox accessible data. CVSS 3.1 Base Score 5.6 (Confidentiality impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N).
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/19/2026
The identified vulnerability resides within the core component of Oracle VM VirtualBox, specifically affecting version 7.2.14 and potentially other supported releases depending on patch availability. This flaw represents a significant security risk because it allows for unauthorized access to critical data stored or processed by virtualized environments managed through this platform. The nature of the defect is characterized as difficult to exploit, which implies that while an attacker can leverage this weakness, they must overcome specific technical hurdles such as precise timing, memory state manipulation, or complex sequence requirements before achieving successful exploitation. Despite these difficulties, the potential impact remains severe due to the elevated privileges often required by virtualization software and the sensitive nature of data contained within guest operating systems.
From a technical perspective, this vulnerability is classified under CWE-200 as an Information Exposure issue, where sensitive information may be disclosed without authorization. The attack vector requires low privilege access on the host infrastructure, meaning that even users with minimal administrative rights or standard user accounts can initiate the exploit chain if they have valid logon credentials to the system running VirtualBox. This aligns with ATT&CK technique T1078, Valid Accounts, as the attacker must possess legitimate authentication tokens to reach the vulnerable component. The complexity of exploitation suggests that this is not a trivial remote code execution or buffer overflow but likely involves logic errors in how virtual machine states are managed or how resources are allocated and validated within the hypervisor layer.
The operational impact of successfully exploiting this vulnerability extends beyond the immediate compromise of Oracle VM VirtualBox itself, indicating a scope change where additional products or services running on the same infrastructure may be affected. This lateral movement capability is critical because it suggests that compromising one virtual machine could lead to data exfiltration from other isolated environments sharing the host resources. The primary consequence highlighted by the CVSS scoring is high confidentiality impact, meaning attackers can read sensitive files, credentials, or configuration details stored within the guest operating systems. Integrity and availability impacts are currently assessed as none in this specific vector analysis, though secondary effects such as denial of service could occur if the exploitation process destabilizes the host system memory.
Mitigation strategies must focus on both immediate remediation and long-term architectural hardening. The most effective countermeasure is to apply the latest security patches provided by Oracle for VirtualBox version 7.2.x immediately upon availability. Organizations should also enforce strict access controls, ensuring that only trusted administrators have logon privileges to hosts running virtualization software. Network segmentation can further limit exposure by isolating hypervisor management interfaces from general user networks. Additionally, enabling multi-factor authentication for any administrative accounts associated with the VirtualBox environment adds a critical layer of defense against credential-based attacks. Regular auditing of host system logs and monitoring for anomalous behavior related to VM state changes or resource access patterns will help detect potential exploitation attempts early in the kill chain.