CVE-2018-12891

xen: preemption checks bypassed in x86 PV MM handling (XSA-264)

Published Jul 2, 2018 CVSS 3.0 · 6.5 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.10.x. Certain PV MMU operations may take a long time to process. For that reason Xen explicitly checks for the need to preempt the current vCPU at certain points. A few rarely taken code paths did bypass such checks. By suitably enforcing the conditions through its own page table contents, a malicious guest may cause such bypasses to be used for an unbounded number of iterations. A malicious or buggy PV guest may cause a Denial of Service (DoS) affecting the entire host. Specifically, it may prevent use of a physical CPU for an indeterminate period of time. All Xen versions from 3.4 onwards are vulnerable. Xen versions 3.3 and earlier are vulnerable to an even wider class of attacks, due to them lacking preemption checks altogether in the affected code paths. Only x86 systems are affected. ARM systems are not affected. Only multi-vCPU x86 PV guests can leverage the vulnerability. x86 HVM or PVH guests as well as x86 single-vCPU PV ones cannot leverage the vulnerability.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Debian DLA Debian DLA DLA-1577-1 xen security update
Debian DSA Debian DSA DSA-4236-1 xen security update
EUVD EUVD EUVD-2018-4844 An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.10.x. Certain PV MMU operations may take a long time to process. For that reason Xen explicitly checks for the need to preempt the current vCPU at certain points. A few rarely taken code paths did bypass such checks. By suitably enforcing the conditions through its own page table contents, a malicious guest may cause such bypasses to be used for an unbounded number of iterations. A malicious or buggy PV guest may cause a Denial of Service (DoS) affecting the entire host. Specifically, it may prevent use of a physical CPU for an indeterminate period of time. All Xen versions from 3.4 onwards are vulnerable. Xen versions 3.3 and earlier are vulnerable to an even wider class of attacks, due to them lacking preemption checks altogether in the affected code paths. Only x86 systems are affected. ARM systems are not affected. Only multi-vCPU x86 PV guests can leverage the vulnerability. x86 HVM or PVH guests as well as x86 single-vCPU PV ones cannot leverage the vulnerability.
History

No history.

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
mitre
Published
Updated
Aug 5, 2024, 8:45 AM
Reserved
Jun 26, 2018, 12:00 AM
Status
Modified
Published
Jul 2, 2018, 5:29 PM
Modified
Jun 17, 2026, 1:38 AM
Severity
Moderate
Public date
Jun 27, 2018, 9:00 PM