CVE-2014-3601: Medium severity suse linux enterprise real time extension vulnerability
A flaw was found in the way iommu mapping failures were handled in kvmiommumappages() function in the Linux kernel. A privileged user in the guest could use this flaw to crash the host in case the guest has access to passed in device.
Acknowledgements:
Red Hat would like to thank Jack Morgenstein of Mellanox for reporting this issue; the security impact of this issue was discovered by Michael Tsirkin of Red Hat.
Other sources
A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's kvmiommumappages() function handled IOMMU mapping failures. A privileged user in a guest with an assigned host device could use this flaw to crash the host.
The kvmiommumappages function in virt/kvm/iommu.c in the Linux kernel through 3.16.1 miscalculates the number of pages during the handling of a mapping failure, which allows guest OS users to (1) cause a denial of service (host OS memory corruption) or possibly have unspecified other impact by triggering a large gfn value or (2) cause a denial of service (host OS memory consumption) by triggering a small gfn value that leads to permanently pinned pages.
Affected Software
Remediation
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the severity of CVE-2014-3601?
CVE-2014-3601 is considered a high severity vulnerability due to its potential to crash the host system.
How do I fix CVE-2014-3601?
To fix CVE-2014-3601, update the kernel to the recommended versions provided by your distribution.
What versions of Linux are affected by CVE-2014-3601?
CVE-2014-3601 affects multiple Linux distributions including Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu versions as outlined in the vulnerability description.
Can a guest user exploit CVE-2014-3601?
Yes, a privileged user in a guest environment can exploit CVE-2014-3601 to potentially crash the host system.
What impact does CVE-2014-3601 have on system stability?
CVE-2014-3601 can significantly impact system stability by allowing a guest to cause the host to crash.