The PV pagetable code in arch/x86/mm.c in Xen 4.7.x and earlier allows local 32-bit PV guest OS administrators to gain host OS privileges by leveraging fast-paths for updating pagetable entries.

Xen 3.3.x through 4.5.x does not properly restrict access to PCI MSI mask bits, which allows local x86 HVM guest users to cause a denial of service (unexpected interrupt and host crash) via unspecified vectors.

grant table v2 status pages may remain accessible after de-allocation 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.

Another race in XENMAPSPACEgranttable handling Guests are 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, are de-allocated when a guest switches (back) from v2 to v1. Freeing such pages requires that the hypervisor enforce that no parallel request can result in the addition of a mapping of such a page to a guest. That enforcement was missing, allowing guests to retain access to pages that were freed and perhaps re-used for other purposes. Unfortunately, when XSA-379 was being prepared, this similar issue was not noticed.

Last updated 24 July 2024

Buffer overflow in the Python bindings for the xcvcpusetaffinity call in Xen 4.0.x, 4.1.x, and 4.2.x allows local administrators with permissions to configure VCPU affinity to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and xend toolstack crash) and possibly gain privileges via a crafted cpumap.

The libxenlight (libxl) toolstack library in Xen 4.0.x, 4.1.x, and 4.2.x uses weak permissions for xenstore keys for paravirtualised and emulated serial console devices, which allows local guest administrators to modify the xenstore value via unspecified vectors.

On Intel CPUs sysret to non-canonical address causes a fault on the sysret instruction itself after the stack pointer is set to guest value but before the CPL is changed. Systems running on AMD CPUs are not vulnerable to this issue as sysret on AMD CPUs does not generate a fault before the CPL change.

On Xen, a privileged user on a 64 bit PV guest kernel running on a 64 bit hypervisor could use this flaw to escalate privileges to that of the host. Depending on the particular guest kernel it is also possible that non-privileged guest users could also elevate their privileges to that of the host.

For Red Hat Enterprise Linux guests, only privileged guest users can exploit this issue. HVM guests and 32-bit PV guests cannot be used to exploit this issue.

Acknowledgements:

Red Hat would like to thank the Xen project for reporting this issue. Upstream acknowledges Rafal Wojtczuk as the original reporter.

The dotmemop function in the Transcendent Memory (TMEM) in Xen 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 allow local guest OS users to cause a denial of service (host crash) and possibly have other unspecified impacts via unspecified vectors related to "broken locking checks" in an "error path." NOTE: this issue was originally published as part of CVE-2012-3497, which was too general; CVE-2012-3497 has been SPLIT into this ID and others.

The x86 emulator in Xen 3.2.x through 4.5.x does not properly ignore segment overrides for instructions with register operands, which allows local guest users to obtain sensitive information, cause a denial of service (memory corruption), or possibly execute arbitrary code via unspecified vectors.

The modl2entry function in arch/x86/mm.c in Xen 3.4 through 4.6.x does not properly validate level 2 page table entries, which allows local PV guest administrators to gain privileges via a crafted superpage mapping.

The dommuupdate function in arch/x86/mm.c in Xen 3.2.x through 4.4.x does not properly manage page references, which allows remote domains to cause a denial of service by leveraging control over an HVM guest and a crafted MMUMACHPHYSUPDATE.

The XENMEMexchange handler in Xen 4.2 and earlier does not properly check the memory address, which allows local PV guest OS administrators to cause a denial of service (crash) or possibly gain privileges via unspecified vectors that overwrite memory in the hypervisor reserved range.

The dotmemdestroypool function in the Transcendent Memory (TMEM) in Xen 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 does not properly validate pool ids, which allows local guest OS users to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and host crash) or execute arbitrary code via unspecified vectors. NOTE: this issue was originally published as part of CVE-2012-3497, which was too general; CVE-2012-3497 has been SPLIT into this ID and others.

Xen 4.0.x and 4.1.x incorrectly releases a grant reference when releasing a non-v1, non-transitive grant, which allows local guest administrators to cause a denial of service (host crash), obtain sensitive information, or possibly have other impacts via unspecified vectors.

The xenlight library (libxl) in Xen 4.0.x through 4.2.x, when IOMMU is disabled, provides access to a busmastering-capable PCI passthrough device before the IOMMU setup is complete, which allows local HVM guest domains to gain privileges or cause a denial of service via a DMA instruction.

Xen 4.2.x, 4.1.x, and 4.0, when using Intel VT-d for PCI passthrough, does not properly configure VT-d when supporting a device that is behind a legacy PCI Bridge, which allows local guests to cause a denial of service to other guests by injecting an interrupt.

The x86emulate function in arch/x86/x86emulate/x86emulate.c in Xen 4.4.x and earlier does not properly check supervisor mode permissions, which allows local HVM users to cause a denial of service (guest crash) or gain guest kernel mode privileges via vectors involving an (1) HLT, (2) LGDT, (3) LIDT, or (4) LMSW instruction.

The vmxsetucmode function in Xen 3.3 through 4.3, when disabling caches, allows local HVM guests with access to memory mapped I/O regions to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption and possibly hypervisor or guest kernel panic) via a crafted GFN range.

Racy interactions between dirty vram tracking and paging log dirty hypercalls Activation of log dirty mode done by XENDMOPtrackdirtyvram (was named HVMOPtrackdirtyvram before Xen 4.9) is racy with ongoing log dirty hypercalls. A suitably timed call to XENDMOPtrackdirtyvram can enable log dirty while another CPU is still in the process of tearing down the structures related to a previously enabled log dirty mode (XENDOMCTLSHADOWOPOFF). This is due to lack of mutually exclusive locking between both operations and can lead to entries being added in already freed slots, resulting in a memory leak.

Xen, possibly before 4.0.2, allows local 64-bit PV guests to cause a denial of service (host crash) by specifying user mode execution without user-mode pagetables.

Memory leak in Xen 3.3 through 4.8.x allows guest OS users to cause a denial of service (ARM or x86 AMD host OS memory consumption) by continually rebooting, because certain cleanup is skipped if no pass-through device was ever assigned, aka XSA-207.

The dommuupdate function in arch/x86/mm.c in Xen 4.x through 4.4.x does not properly restrict updates to only PV page tables, which allows remote PV guests to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference) by leveraging hardware emulation services for HVM guests using Hardware Assisted Paging (HAP).

Xen 4.0.x, 4.1.x, and 4.2.x does not properly restrict the contents of a XRSTOR, which allows local PV guest users to cause a denial of service (unhandled exception and hypervisor crash) via unspecified vectors.

The XENDOMCTLgetmemlist hypercall in Xen 3.4.x through 4.3.x (possibly 4.3.1) does not always obtain the pagealloclock and mmrwlock in the same order, which allows local guest administrators to cause a denial of service (host deadlock).

Xen 3.0.3 through 4.1.x (possibly 4.1.6.1), 4.2.x (possibly 4.2.3), and 4.3.x (possibly 4.3.1) does not properly prevent access to hypercalls, which allows local guest users to gain privileges via a crafted application running in ring 1 or 2.

The HVMOPpagetabledying hypercall in Xen 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 does not properly check the pagetable state when running on shadow pagetables, which allows a local HVM guest OS to cause a denial of service (hypervisor crash) via unspecified vectors.

Multiple integer overflows in the (1) tmhcopyfromclient and (2) tmhcopytoclient functions in the Transcendent Memory (TMEM) in Xen 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 allow local guest OS users to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and host crash) via unspecified vectors. NOTE: this issue was originally published as part of CVE-2012-3497, which was too general; CVE-2012-3497 has been SPLIT into this ID and others.

Xen 3.3.x through 4.5.x enables logging for PCI MSI-X pass-through error messages, which allows local x86 HVM guests to cause a denial of service (host disk consumption) via certain invalid operations.

The compatiret function in Xen 3.1 through 4.5 iterates the wrong way through a loop, which allows local 32-bit PV guest administrators to cause a denial of service (large loop and system hang) via a hypercalliret call with EFLAGS.VM set.