CVE-2024-1441 is a medium-severity vulnerability identified in libvirt version 9.7.0, specifically within the udevListInterfacesByStatus() function. The vulnerability stems from an off-by-one error when the number of network interfaces exceeds the allocated size of the 'names' array. This boundary error can be triggered by an unprivileged client sending specially crafted data to the libvirt daemon, which manages virtualization resources. The flaw causes the daemon to crash, resulting in a denial of service condition that disrupts virtualization management and potentially impacts hosted virtual machines. The CVSS 3.1 score of 5.5 reflects that the attack vector is local (AV:L), requires low attack complexity (AC:L), low privileges (PR:L), no user interaction (UI:N), and affects availability only (A:H) without compromising confidentiality or integrity. No known exploits have been reported in the wild, and no official patches were linked at the time of disclosure. The vulnerability highlights the risks of improper bounds checking in virtualization management software, which can be exploited to degrade service availability. Organizations relying on libvirt for managing virtual machines should be aware of this issue and prepare to apply patches or implement access controls to mitigate exploitation risks.

For European organizations, the primary impact of CVE-2024-1441 is a denial of service against the libvirt daemon, which could disrupt virtualization management and potentially affect hosted services and applications. This can lead to downtime of virtual machines, impacting business continuity, especially in environments heavily reliant on virtualization for cloud services, development, or production workloads. Since the vulnerability requires local access with low privileges, insider threats or compromised internal systems could exploit this flaw to cause service interruptions. The lack of confidentiality or integrity impact limits data breach risks, but availability degradation can affect operational efficiency and service-level agreements. Organizations with large-scale virtualization deployments or managed service providers in Europe may face increased operational risks until mitigations or patches are applied.

1. Restrict local access to the libvirt daemon to trusted users only, minimizing the risk of unprivileged clients sending malicious requests. 2. Implement strict access controls and monitoring on systems running libvirt to detect unusual interface enumeration or malformed requests targeting the udevListInterfacesByStatus() function. 3. Employ network segmentation and host-based firewalls to limit exposure of virtualization management interfaces. 4. Regularly audit and update virtualization infrastructure to the latest stable libvirt versions once patches addressing CVE-2024-1441 are released. 5. Consider deploying runtime protection tools that can detect and prevent daemon crashes or abnormal behavior indicative of exploitation attempts. 6. Educate system administrators and security teams about this vulnerability to ensure rapid response and incident handling if exploitation is suspected.