RUSTSEC-2024-0002: `serde` deserialization for `FamStructWrapper` lacks bound checks that could potentially lead to out-of-bounds memory access

What to do

1. See which version you have: cargo tree -i vmm-sys-util (it also shows which of your dependencies pulls it in).
2. Update within your version requirement: cargo update -p vmm-sys-util. If the fix is a newer major or minor than your requirement allows, raise it in Cargo.toml (for example vmm-sys-util = "0.12.0") or update the dependency that pulls it in.
3. Check again with cargo audit, or paste your Cargo.lock into our Cargo.toml checker.

Details from the advisory

Impact

An issue was discovered in the FamStructWrapper::deserialize implementation provided by the crate for vmm_sys_util::fam::FamStructWrapper, which can lead to out of bounds memory accesses. The deserialization does not check that the length stored in the header matches the flexible array length. Mismatch in the lengths might allow out of bounds memory access through Rust-safe methods.

Impacted versions: >= 0.5.0

Patches

The issue was corrected in version 0.12.0 by inserting a check that verifies the lengths of compared flexible arrays are equal for any deserialized header and aborting deserialization otherwise. Moreover, the API was changed so that header length can only be modified through Rust-unsafe code. This ensures that users cannot trigger out-of-bounds memory access from Rust-safe code.

References

• Package: crates.io/crates/vmm-sys-util
• Advisory: rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2024-0002.html
• Web: github.com/rust-vmm/vmm-sys-util/commit/30172fca2a8e0a38667d934ee56682247e13f167

From the RustSec Advisory Database (CC0-1.0) via the OSV export, downloaded Oct 24, 2026. Severity score computed from the published CVSS vector.