CVE-2019-18423: High severity xen xapi vulnerability
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.12.x allowing ARM guest OS users to cause a denial of service via a XENMEMaddtophysmap hypercall. p2m->maxmappedgfn is used by the functions p2mresolvetranslationfault() and p2mgetentry() to sanity check guest physical frame. The rest of the code in the two functions will assume that there is a valid root table and check that with BUGON(). The function p2mgetrootpointer() will ignore the unused top bits of a guest physical frame. This means that the function p2msetentry() will alias the frame. However, p2m->maxmappedgfn will be updated using the original frame. It would be possible to set p2m->maxmappedgfn high enough to cover a frame that would lead p2mgetrootpointer() to return NULL in p2mgetentry() and p2mresolvetranslationfault(). Additionally, the sanity check on p2m->maxmappedgfn is off-by-one allowing "highest mapped + 1" to be considered valid. However, p2mgetrootpointer() will return NULL. The problem could be triggered with a specially crafted hypercall XENMEMaddtophysmap{, batch} followed by an access to an address (via hypercall or direct access) that passes the sanity check but cause p2mgetrootpointer() to return NULL. A malicious guest administrator may cause a hypervisor crash, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS). Xen version 4.8 and newer are vulnerable. Only Arm systems are vulnerable. x86 systems are not affected.
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Patch Available
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the severity of CVE-2019-18423?
CVE-2019-18423 is classified as a denial of service vulnerability affecting ARM guest OS users in Xen.
How do I fix CVE-2019-18423?
To fix CVE-2019-18423, upgrade to the versions of Xen that are not affected, such as 4.12.x or later or apply patches provided by your distribution.
Which versions of Xen are affected by CVE-2019-18423?
CVE-2019-18423 affects Xen versions from 4.8 to 4.12.1, including specific distributions like Debian and Fedora.
Is CVE-2019-18423 exploitable remotely?
CVE-2019-18423 is not exploitable remotely, as it specifically targets ARM guest OS users through hypercalls.
What can happen if I do not mitigate CVE-2019-18423?
If CVE-2019-18423 is not mitigated, it can lead to a denial of service, resulting in crashes or instability of ARM guest operating systems.