Invalid drop of partially-initialized instances in wasmtime

CISA KEV is observed exploitation evidence. FIRST EPSS is a dated prediction of exploitation in the next 30 days. Missing scores are unknown. This collector requests predictions only for explicit CVE aliases in the public NuGet archive; Microsoft release views retain their existing prediction scope.

No collected risk observation for these identifiers. This does not establish absence of exploitation or a zero probability.

Wasmtime is an open source runtime for WebAssembly & WASI. Prior to versions 0.34.1 and 0.33.1, there exists a bug in the pooling instance allocator in Wasmtime's runtime where a failure to instantiate an instance for a module that defines an `externref` global will result in an invalid drop of a `VMExternRef` via an uninitialized pointer. A number of conditions listed in the GitHub Security Advisory must be true in order for an instance to be vulnerable to this issue. Maintainers believe that the effective impact of this bug is relatively small because the usage of `externref` is still uncommon and without a resource limiter configured on the `Store`, which is not the default configuration, it is only possible to trigger the bug from an error returned by `mprotect` or `VirtualAlloc`. Note that on Linux with the `uffd` feature enabled, it is only possible to trigger the bug from a resource limiter as the call to `mprotect` is skipped. The bug has been fixed in 0.34.1 and 0.33.1 and users are encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible. If it is not possible to upgrade to version 0.34.1 or 0.33.1 of the `wasmtime` crate, it is recommend that support for the reference types proposal be disabled by passing `false` to `Config::wasm_reference_types`. Doing so will prevent modules that use `externref` from being loaded entirely.

Source published

16 Feb 2022 22:00:10 UTC

Source modified

23 Apr 2025 19:03:01 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

Source terms

CVE Program Terms of Use

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This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: cve-program · CVE Program Terms of Use. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS 3.1 · 5.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Wasmtime is a standalone runtime for WebAssembly. There is a bug in Wasmtime's code generator, Cranelift, for AArch64 targets where constant divisors can result in incorrect division results at runtime. This affects Wasmtime prior to version 0.38.2 and Cranelift prior to 0.85.2. This issue only affects the AArch64 platform. Other platforms are not affected. The translation rules for constants did not take into account whether sign or zero-extension should happen which resulted in an incorrect value being placed into a register when a division was encountered. The impact of this bug is that programs executing within the WebAssembly sandbox would not behave according to the WebAssembly specification. This means that it is hypothetically possible for execution within the sandbox to go awry and WebAssembly programs could produce unexpected results. This should not impact hosts executing WebAssembly but does affect the correctness of guest programs. This bug has been patched in Wasmtime version 0.38.2 and cranelift-codegen 0.85.2. There are no known workarounds.

Source published

21 Jul 2022 13:50:11 UTC

Source modified

23 Apr 2025 17:57:39 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

Source terms

CVE Program Terms of Use

Original source record · Cite this exact observation · Complete original publisher JSON

This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: cve-program · CVE Program Terms of Use. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS 3.1 · 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Wasmtime is an open source runtime for WebAssembly & WASI. Prior to versions 0.34.1 and 0.33.1, there exists a bug in the pooling instance allocator in Wasmtime's runtime where a failure to instantiate an instance for a module that defines an `externref` global will result in an invalid drop of a `VMExternRef` via an uninitialized pointer. A number of conditions listed in the GitHub Security Advisory must be true in order for an instance to be vulnerable to this issue. Maintainers believe that the effective impact of this bug is relatively small because the usage of `externref` is still uncommon and without a resource limiter configured on the `Store`, which is not the default configuration, it is only possible to trigger the bug from an error returned by `mprotect` or `VirtualAlloc`. Note that on Linux with the `uffd` feature enabled, it is only possible to trigger the bug from a resource limiter as the call to `mprotect` is skipped. The bug has been fixed in 0.34.1 and 0.33.1 and users are encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible. If it is not possible to upgrade to version 0.34.1 or 0.33.1 of the `wasmtime` crate, it is recommend that support for the reference types proposal be disabled by passing `false` to `Config::wasm_reference_types`. Doing so will prevent modules that use `externref` from being loaded entirely.

Source published

Feb 16, 2022, 10:00:10 PM (timezone not stated)

Source modified

Apr 23, 2025, 7:03:01 PM (timezone not stated)

Observed here

9 Nov 2026 23:14:14 UTC

Source terms

ENISA EUVD · source terms and attribution apply

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This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: euvd · ENISA EUVD · source terms and attribution apply. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

EUVD CVSS 3.1 · 5.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Wasmtime is a standalone runtime for WebAssembly. There is a bug in Wasmtime's code generator, Cranelift, for AArch64 targets where constant divisors can result in incorrect division results at runtime. This affects Wasmtime prior to version 0.38.2 and Cranelift prior to 0.85.2. This issue only affects the AArch64 platform. Other platforms are not affected. The translation rules for constants did not take into account whether sign or zero-extension should happen which resulted in an incorrect value being placed into a register when a division was encountered. The impact of this bug is that programs executing within the WebAssembly sandbox would not behave according to the WebAssembly specification. This means that it is hypothetically possible for execution within the sandbox to go awry and WebAssembly programs could produce unexpected results. This should not impact hosts executing WebAssembly but does affect the correctness of guest programs. This bug has been patched in Wasmtime version 0.38.2 and cranelift-codegen 0.85.2. There are no known workarounds.

Source published

Jul 21, 2022, 1:50:11 PM (timezone not stated)

Source modified

Apr 23, 2025, 5:57:39 PM (timezone not stated)

Observed here

10 Nov 2026 00:10:26 UTC

Source terms

ENISA EUVD · source terms and attribution apply

Original source record · Cite this exact observation · Complete original publisher JSON

This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: euvd · ENISA EUVD · source terms and attribution apply. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

EUVD CVSS 3.1 · 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Wasmtime is an open source runtime for WebAssembly & WASI. Prior to versions 0.34.1 and 0.33.1, there exists a bug in the pooling instance allocator in Wasmtime's runtime where a failure to instantiate an instance for a module that defines an `externref` global will result in an invalid drop of a `VMExternRef` via an uninitialized pointer. A number of conditions listed in the GitHub Security Advisory must be true in order for an instance to be vulnerable to this issue. Maintainers believe that the effective impact of this bug is relatively small because the usage of `externref` is still uncommon and without a resource limiter configured on the `Store`, which is not the default configuration, it is only possible to trigger the bug from an error returned by `mprotect` or `VirtualAlloc`. Note that on Linux with the `uffd` feature enabled, it is only possible to trigger the bug from a resource limiter as the call to `mprotect` is skipped. The bug has been fixed in 0.34.1 and 0.33.1 and users are encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible. If it is not possible to upgrade to version 0.34.1 or 0.33.1 of the `wasmtime` crate, it is recommend that support for the reference types proposal be disabled by passing `false` to `Config::wasm_reference_types`. Doing so will prevent modules that use `externref` from being loaded entirely.

Source published

16 Feb 2022 22:15:07 UTC

Source modified

17 Jun 2026 04:30:32 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 19:17:49 UTC

Source terms

NIST NVD usage terms; underlying source attribution retained

Original source record · Cite this exact observation · Complete original publisher JSON

This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: nvd · NIST NVD usage terms; underlying source attribution retained. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS 3.1 · [email protected] · Secondary · 5.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS 3.1 · [email protected] · Primary · 8.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS 2.0 · [email protected] · Primary · 7.1 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

Wasmtime is a standalone runtime for WebAssembly. There is a bug in Wasmtime's code generator, Cranelift, for AArch64 targets where constant divisors can result in incorrect division results at runtime. This affects Wasmtime prior to version 0.38.2 and Cranelift prior to 0.85.2. This issue only affects the AArch64 platform. Other platforms are not affected. The translation rules for constants did not take into account whether sign or zero-extension should happen which resulted in an incorrect value being placed into a register when a division was encountered. The impact of this bug is that programs executing within the WebAssembly sandbox would not behave according to the WebAssembly specification. This means that it is hypothetically possible for execution within the sandbox to go awry and WebAssembly programs could produce unexpected results. This should not impact hosts executing WebAssembly but does affect the correctness of guest programs. This bug has been patched in Wasmtime version 0.38.2 and cranelift-codegen 0.85.2. There are no known workarounds.

Source published

22 Jul 2022 04:15:14 UTC

Source modified

17 Jun 2026 04:44:57 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 20:17:30 UTC

Source terms

NIST NVD usage terms; underlying source attribution retained

Original source record · Cite this exact observation · Complete original publisher JSON

This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: nvd · NIST NVD usage terms; underlying source attribution retained. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS 3.1 · [email protected] · Secondary · 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

CVSS 3.1 · [email protected] · Primary · 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

### Impact There was a bug in Wasmtime's code generator, Cranelift, for AArch64 targets where constant divisors could result in incorrect division results at runtime. The translation rules for constants did not take into account whether sign- or zero-extension should happen, which resulted in an incorrect value being placed into a register when a division was encountered. For example, a constant 32-bit unsigned divisor of `0xfffffffe` would be incorrectly sign-extended to 64-bits to `0xfffffffffffffffe`. Any kind of division of operands smaller than 64 bits is implemented with a 64-bit division instruction which would then result in an incorrect result because the divisor was larger than expected. The impact of this bug is that programs executing within the WebAssembly sandbox would not behave according to the WebAssembly specification. This means that it is hypothetically possible for execution within the sandbox to go awry and WebAssembly programs could produce unexpected results. This should not impact hosts executing WebAssembly, but does affect the correctness of guest programs. This bug was found with differential fuzzing of Wasmtime against other engines on the AArch64 platform. Fuzzing on AArch64 is not regularly performed at this time and the Wasmtime team is investigating how best to continuously fuzz AArch64 in the same manner as x86_64. ### Patches This bug has been patched and users should upgrade to Wasmtime version 0.38.2. ### Workarounds If upgrading is not an option at this time, direct users of Cranelift that control the exact Cranelift instructions being compiled can avoid the vulnerability by explicitly extending constant divisors to 64 bits using either the `sextend.i64` or the `uextend.i64` operation. Note, though, that this issue only affects the AArch64 targets. Other platforms are not affected. ### For more information If you have any questions or comments about this advisory: * Reach out to us on [the Bytecode Alliance Zulip chat](https://bytecodealliance.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/217126-wasmtime) * Open an issue in [the bytecodealliance/wasmtime repository](https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime/)

Source published

21 Jul 2022 22:34:38 UTC

Source modified

2 May 2025 12:49:25 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:19:54 UTC

Source terms

GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0

Original source record · Cite this exact observation · Complete original publisher JSON

This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: osv · GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS_V3 · CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Publisher rating · MODERATE

### Impact There exists a bug in the pooling instance allocator in Wasmtime's runtime where a failure to instantiate an instance for a module that defines an `externref` global will result in an invalid drop of a `VMExternRef` via an uninitialized pointer. As instance slots may be reused between consecutive instantiations, the value of the uninitialized pointer may be from a previous instantiation and therefore under the control of an attacker via a module's initial values for its globals. If the attacker can somehow determine an address under their control inside the mapped memory representing the instance pool, it is possible to trick the runtime to call `drop_in_place` on a trait object under the attacker's control and therefore cause remote code execution. Exploiting the bug to cause remote code execution would be very difficult as attackers cannot determine the addresses of globals from code executing within the WebAssembly VM and the memory space for the instance pool cannot be statically determined. Operating system mitigations, such as [address space layout randomization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomization), would additionally increase the difficulty for attackers to determine useful executable code to target with an exploit. It is also very unlikely that attackers will be able to directly influence the conditions that trigger the bug as described below. When the conditions to trigger the bug are met, however, it is much easier to exploit this bug to cause a denial of service by crashing the host with an invalid memory read. The following engine configuration (via [Config](https://docs.rs/wasmtime/0.34.0/wasmtime/struct.Config.html)) is required to be impacted by this bug: * support for the reference types proposal must be enabled (this is the default for `Config`). * a pooling allocation strategy must be configured via [Config::allocation_strategy](https://docs.rs/wasmtime/0.34.0/wasmtime/struct.Config.html#method.allocation_strategy), which is **not the default allocation strategy**. A module must be instantiated with **all the following characteristics**: * The module defines at least one table or memory. * The module defines at least one `externref` global. During instantiation, **one of the following** must occur to cause the instantiation to fail: * a call to `mprotect` or `VirtualAlloc` fails (e.g. out-of-memory conditions). * a resource limiter was configured in the associated `Store` (via [Store::limiter](https://docs.rs/wasmtime/0.34.0/wasmtime/struct.Store.html#method.limiter) or [Store::limiter_async](https://docs.rs/wasmtime/0.34.0/wasmtime/struct.Store.html#method.limiter_async)) and the limiter returns `false` from the initial call to `memory_growing` or `table_growing`. **Stores do not have a resource limiter set by default**. This results in a partially-initialized instance being dropped and that attempts to drop the uninitialized `VMExternRef` representing the defined `externref` global. We have reason to believe that the effective impact of this bug is relatively small because the usage of `externref` is still uncommon and without a resource limiter configured on the `Store`, which is not the default configuration, it is only possible to trigger the bug from an error returned by `mprotect` or `VirtualAlloc`. Note that on Linux with the `uffd` feature enabled, it is only possible to trigger the bug from a resource limiter as the call to `mprotect` is skipped; if no resource limiter is used, then this configuration is not vulnerable. ### Patches The bug has been fixed in 0.34.1 and 0.33.1; users are encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible. ### Workarounds If it is not possible to upgrade to 0.34.1 or 0.33.1 of the `wasmtime` crate, it is recommend that support for the reference types proposal be disabled by passing `false` to [Config::wasm_reference_types](https://docs.rs/wasmtime/latest/wasmtime/struct.Config.html#method.wasm_reference_types). Doing so will prevent modules that use `externref` from being loaded entirely. ### For more information If you have any questions or comments about this advisory: * Reach out to us on [the Bytecode Alliance Zulip chat](https://bytecodealliance.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/217126-wasmtime) * Open an issue in [the bytecodealliance/wasmtime repository](https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime/)

Source published

16 Feb 2022 22:35:03 UTC

Source modified

2 May 2025 12:48:30 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:19:54 UTC

Source terms

GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0

Original source record · Cite this exact observation · Complete original publisher JSON

This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: osv · GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS_V3 · CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Publisher rating · MODERATE

This is an entry in the RustSec database for the Wasmtime security advisory located at https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime/security/advisories/GHSA-88xq-w8cq-xfg7. For more information see the GitHub-hosted security advisory.

Source published

17 Feb 2022 12:00:00 UTC

Source modified

12 Oct 2026 18:00:03 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:19:54 UTC

Source terms

OSV · upstream source license applies

Original source record · Cite this exact observation · Complete original publisher JSON

This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: osv · OSV · upstream source license applies. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

This is an entry in the RustSec database for the Wasmtime security advisory located at https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime/security/advisories/GHSA-7f6x-jwh5-m9r4. For more information see the GitHub-hosted security advisory.

Source published

5 Jul 2022 12:00:00 UTC

Source modified

12 Oct 2026 18:00:04 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:19:54 UTC

Source terms

OSV · upstream source license applies

Original source record · Cite this exact observation · Complete original publisher JSON

This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: osv · OSV · upstream source license applies. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.