CVE-2021-28703: High severity xen xapi vulnerability

Published Dec 7, 2021
·
Updated

grant table v2 status pages may remain accessible after de-allocation (take two) Guest get permitted access to certain Xen-owned pages of memory. The majority of such pages remain allocated / associated with a guest for its entire lifetime. Grant table v2 status pages, however, get de-allocated when a guest switched (back) from v2 to v1. The freeing of such pages requires that the hypervisor know where in the guest these pages were mapped. The hypervisor tracks only one use within guest space, but racing requests from the guest to insert mappings of these pages may result in any of them to become mapped in multiple locations. Upon switching back from v2 to v1, the guest would then retain access to a page that was freed and perhaps re-used for other purposes. This bug was fortuitously fixed by code cleanup in Xen 4.14, and backported to security-supported Xen branches as a prerequisite of the fix for XSA-378.

Affected Software

1 affected component
XEN Xen<14.4

Event History

Dec 7, 2021
CVE Published
via MITRE·12:00 AM
Data Sourced
via MITRE·12:00 AM
DescriptionWeakness

Frequently Asked Questions

1

What is the severity of CVE-2021-28703?

The severity of CVE-2021-28703 is considered high due to unauthorized access to Xen-owned memory pages.

2

What systems are affected by CVE-2021-28703?

CVE-2021-28703 affects Xen versions prior to 14.4.

3

How do I fix CVE-2021-28703?

To fix CVE-2021-28703, you should upgrade to the latest version of Xen that is 14.4 or higher.

4

What exploit does CVE-2021-28703 allow?

CVE-2021-28703 allows guest access to de-allocated grant table v2 status pages, potentially leading to information disclosure.

5

Is CVE-2021-28703 known to be actively exploited?

As of now, there are no public reports indicating that CVE-2021-28703 is being actively exploited.

Contact

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