CVE-2021-28708: High severity xen xapi vulnerability
PoD operations on misaligned GFNs T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] x86 HVM and PVH guests may be started in populate-on-demand (PoD) mode, to provide a way for them to later easily have more memory assigned. Guests are permitted to control certain P2M aspects of individual pages via hypercalls. These hypercalls may act on ranges of pages specified via page orders (resulting in a power-of-2 number of pages). The implementation of some of these hypercalls for PoD does not enforce the base page frame number to be suitably aligned for the specified order, yet some code involved in PoD handling actually makes such an assumption. These operations are XENMEMdecreasereservation (CVE-2021-28704) and XENMEMpopulatephysmap (CVE-2021-28707), the latter usable only by domains controlling the guest, i.e. a de-privileged qemu or a stub domain. (Patch 1, combining the fix to both these two issues.) In addition handling of XENMEMdecreasereservation can also trigger a host crash when the specified page order is neither 4k nor 2M nor 1G (CVE-2021-28708, patch 2).
Affected Software
Remediation
Patch Available
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the severity of CVE-2021-28708?
CVE-2021-28708 is considered a moderate severity vulnerability due to potential memory handling issues.
How do I fix CVE-2021-28708?
To fix CVE-2021-28708, upgrade your Xen installation to at least version 4.14.6-1 or other patched versions specified in vendor advisories.
Who is affected by CVE-2021-28708?
CVE-2021-28708 affects users running Xen hypervisor versions from 4.7.0 up to 4.15.1 as well as certain distributions like Debian and Fedora.
What kind of systems are vulnerable to CVE-2021-28708?
Systems using misaligned GFNs in populate-on-demand mode with x86 HVM and PVH guests are vulnerable to CVE-2021-28708.
Is CVE-2021-28708 mitigated in later releases?
Yes, CVE-2021-28708 is mitigated in Xen releases after 4.15.1, so users should ensure they are using a safe version.