Wasmtime is an open source runtime for WebAssembly & WASI. In Wasmtime from version 0.19.0 and before version 0.30.0 there was a use-after-free bug when passing externrefs from the host to guest Wasm content. To trigger the bug, you have to explicitly pass multiple externrefs from the host to a Wasm instance at the same time, either by passing multiple externrefs as arguments from host code to a Wasm function, or returning multiple externrefs to Wasm from a multi-value return function defined in the host. If you do not have host code that matches one of these shapes, then you are not impacted. If Wasmtime's VMExternRefActivationsTable became filled to capacity after passing the first externref in, then passing in the second externref could trigger a garbage collection. However the first externref is not rooted until we pass control to Wasm, and therefore could be reclaimed by the collector if nothing else was holding a reference to it or otherwise keeping it alive. Then, when control was passed to Wasm after the garbage collection, Wasm could use the first externref, which at this point has already been freed. We have reason to believe that the effective impact of this bug is relatively small because usage of externref is currently quite rare. The bug has been fixed, and users should upgrade to Wasmtime 0.30.0. If you cannot upgrade Wasmtime yet, you can avoid the bug by disabling reference types support in Wasmtime by passing false to wasmtime::Config::wasm_reference_types.
| Software | From | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| bytecodealliance / wasmtime | 0.19.0 | 0.30.0 |
| fedoraproject / fedora | 34 | 34.x |
| fedoraproject / fedora | 35 | 35.x |
wasmtime
|
0.19.0 | 0.30.0 |
wasmtime
|
- | 0.30.0 |
A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.
CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.
A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.
Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.
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