CVE-2018-1118: Canonical Ubuntu Linux

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

Linux kernel vhost since version 4.8 does not properly initialize memory in messages passed between virtual guests and the host operating system in the vhost/vhost.c:vhost_new_msg() function. This can allow local privileged users to read some kernel memory contents when reading from the /dev/vhost-net device file.

Affected products

• Canonical Ubuntu Linux: version 16.04 only; version 18.04 only
• Debian Debian Linux: version 8.0 only
• Linux Linux Kernel: from 4.8, before 4.18 (fixed in 4.18)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop: version 7.0 only
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server: version 7.0 only
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation: version 7.0 only
• Red Hat Virtualization Host: version 4.0 only

Published 2018-05-10. Last modified 2026-06-17.