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Xen CVE-2019-19577

HIGH
Memory Leak (CWE-401)
2019-12-11 cve@mitre.org
7.2
CVSS 3.1 · NVD
View

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
ASVS 5.0
V15 - Secure Coding and Architecture Resource cleanup, leak prevention
Impact

CVSS score of 7.2 (HIGH). Attack characteristics: physical attack vector, low complexity, high privileges required, no user interaction not required.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to exhaust available memory leading to denial of service.

This Week Schedule remediation this week. Why: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9).
Patch available 0.5% exploitation probability (EPSS)

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AnalysisAI

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.12.x allowing x86 AMD HVM guest OS users to cause a denial of service or possibly gain privileges by triggering data-structure access during pagetable-height. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.2), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Memory Leak vulnerability could allow attackers to exhaust available memory leading to denial of service.

RemediationAI

A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Ensure all allocated memory is properly freed. Use RAII patterns or garbage-collected languages.

Affects your stack

Find out whether the stacks and servers you run are on an affected version.

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Technical ContextAI · show details

This vulnerability is classified as Memory Leak (CWE-401), which allows attackers to exhaust available memory leading to denial of service. An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.12.x allowing x86 AMD HVM guest OS users to cause a denial of service or possibly gain privileges by triggering data-structure access during pagetable-height updates. When running on AMD systems with an IOMMU, Xen attempted to dynamically adapt the number of levels of pagetables (the pagetable height) in the IOMMU according to the guest's address space size. The code to select and update the height had several bugs. Notably, the update was done without taking a lock which is necessary for safe operation. A malicious guest administrator can cause Xen to access data structures while they are being modified, causing Xen to crash. Privilege escalation is thought to be very difficult but cannot be ruled out. Additionally, there is a potential memory leak of 4kb per guest boot, under memory pressure. Only Xen on AMD CPUs is vulnerable. Xen running on Intel CPUs is not vulnerable. ARM systems are not vulnerable. Only systems where guests are given direct access to physical devices are vulnerable. Systems which do not use PCI pass-through are not vulnerable. Only HVM guests can exploit the vulnerability. PV and PVH guests cannot. All versions of Xen with IOMMU support are vulnerable. Affected products include: Xen, Fedoraproject Fedora. Version information: through 4.12..

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Severity by source

NVD PRIMARY 7.2 HIGH
AV:P/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.

CVSS VectorNVD

Attack Vector
Physical
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
High
User Interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

DescriptionNVD

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.12.x allowing x86 AMD HVM guest OS users to cause a denial of service or possibly gain privileges by triggering data-structure access during pagetable-height updates. When running on AMD systems with an IOMMU, Xen attempted to dynamically adapt the number of levels of pagetables (the pagetable height) in the IOMMU according to the guest's address space size. The code to select and update the height had several bugs. Notably, the update was done without taking a lock which is necessary for safe operation. A malicious guest administrator can cause Xen to access data structures while they are being modified, causing Xen to crash. Privilege escalation is thought to be very difficult but cannot be ruled out. Additionally, there is a potential memory leak of 4kb per guest boot, under memory pressure. Only Xen on AMD CPUs is vulnerable. Xen running on Intel CPUs is not vulnerable. ARM systems are not vulnerable. Only systems where guests are given direct access to physical devices are vulnerable. Systems which do not use PCI pass-through are not vulnerable. Only HVM guests can exploit the vulnerability. PV and PVH guests cannot. All versions of Xen with IOMMU support are vulnerable.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.5%
Top 61% exploitable
Data Quality
2 sources
Confidence: Low

How this decision was reached

The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.

SignalValue
Severity HIGH
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.5%
Patch available Yes
Active threat No
Deciding rule
HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision· derived
Defer
Exploitation· derived
None
System Exposure· derived
Small
Automatable· derived
No
Human Impact· derived
Medium

Priority Score

37
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: +1
CVSS: +36
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

Privilege escalation occurs when an attacker leverages flaws in access control mechanisms to gain permissions beyond what they were originally granted.

Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.

Affected Products (CPE)NVD

cpe:2.3:o:xen:xen:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:31:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

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