CVE-2020-11742: Medium severity XEN Xen vulnerability

Published Apr 14, 2020
·
Updated

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.13.x, allowing guest OS users to cause a denial of service because of bad continuation handling in GNTTABOPcopy. Grant table operations are expected to return 0 for success, and a negative number for errors. The fix for CVE-2017-12135 introduced a path through grant copy handling where success may be returned to the caller without any action taken. In particular, the status fields of individual operations are left uninitialised, and may result in errant behaviour in the caller of GNTTABOPcopy. A buggy or malicious guest can construct its grant table in such a way that, when a backend domain tries to copy a grant, it hits the incorrect exit path. This returns success to the caller without doing anything, which may cause crashes or other incorrect behaviour.

Affected Software

5 affected componentsFixes available
debian/xen
4.14.6-14.14.5+94-ge49571868d-14.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-1+deb12u14.17.5+23-ga4e5191dc0-14.20.0-1
XEN Xen<=4.13.0
XEN Xen=4.13.0-rc1
XEN Xen=4.13.0-rc2
Fedoraproject Fedora=32

Event History

Apr 14, 2020
CVE Published
via MITRE·12:19 PM
Data Sourced
via MITRE·12:19 PM
Description
Jan 11, 2024
Data Sourced
via Launchpad·11:37 PM
Description
Sep 16, 2024
Data Sourced
via Ubuntu·02:21 AM
RemedyDescriptionSeverityAffected Software

Frequently Asked Questions

1

What is CVE-2020-11742?

CVE-2020-11742 is a vulnerability that allows guest OS users to cause a denial of service in Xen through 4.13.x due to bad continuation handling in GNTTABOP_copy.

2

How does CVE-2020-11742 affect Xen?

CVE-2020-11742 affects Xen through 4.13.x, allowing guest OS users to cause a denial of service.

3

How can guest OS users exploit CVE-2020-11742?

Guest OS users can exploit CVE-2020-11742 by taking advantage of the bad continuation handling in GNTTABOP_copy, leading to a denial of service.

4

What is the recommended remedy for CVE-2020-11742 on Ubuntu?

The recommended remedy for CVE-2020-11742 on Ubuntu is to update to Xen version 4.11.3+24- or higher.

5

What is the recommended remedy for CVE-2020-11742 on Debian?

The recommended remedy for CVE-2020-11742 on Debian is to update to Xen version 4.11.4+107-gef32c7afa2-1, 4.14.5+94-ge49571868d-1, 4.17.1+2-gb773c48e36-1, or 4.17.2-1.

Contact

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