Xen
CVE-2020-15565
HIGH
Severity by source
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Lifecycle Timeline
1DescriptionNVD
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.13.x, allowing x86 Intel HVM guest OS users to cause a host OS denial of service or possibly gain privileges because of insufficient cache write-back under VT-d. When page tables are shared between IOMMU and CPU, changes to them require flushing of both TLBs. Furthermore, IOMMUs may be non-coherent, and hence prior to flushing IOMMU TLBs, a CPU cache also needs writing back to memory after changes were made. Such writing back of cached data was missing in particular when splitting large page mappings into smaller granularity ones. A malicious guest may be able to retain read/write DMA access to frames returned to Xen's free pool, and later reused for another purpose. Host crashes (leading to a Denial of Service) and privilege escalation cannot be ruled out. Xen versions from at least 3.2 onwards are affected. Only x86 Intel systems are affected. x86 AMD as well as Arm systems are not affected. Only x86 HVM guests using hardware assisted paging (HAP), having a passed through PCI device assigned, and having page table sharing enabled can leverage the vulnerability. Note that page table sharing will be enabled (by default) only if Xen considers IOMMU and CPU large page size support compatible.
AnalysisAI
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.13.x, allowing x86 Intel HVM guest OS users to cause a host OS denial of service or possibly gain privileges because of insufficient cache write-back under. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability could allow attackers to cause denial of service by exhausting system resources.
Technical ContextAI
This vulnerability is classified as Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400), which allows attackers to cause denial of service by exhausting system resources. An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.13.x, allowing x86 Intel HVM guest OS users to cause a host OS denial of service or possibly gain privileges because of insufficient cache write-back under VT-d. When page tables are shared between IOMMU and CPU, changes to them require flushing of both TLBs. Furthermore, IOMMUs may be non-coherent, and hence prior to flushing IOMMU TLBs, a CPU cache also needs writing back to memory after changes were made. Such writing back of cached data was missing in particular when splitting large page mappings into smaller granularity ones. A malicious guest may be able to retain read/write DMA access to frames returned to Xen's free pool, and later reused for another purpose. Host crashes (leading to a Denial of Service) and privilege escalation cannot be ruled out. Xen versions from at least 3.2 onwards are affected. Only x86 Intel systems are affected. x86 AMD as well as Arm systems are not affected. Only x86 HVM guests using hardware assisted paging (HAP), having a passed through PCI device assigned, and having page table sharing enabled can leverage the vulnerability. Note that page table sharing will be enabled (by default) only if Xen considers IOMMU and CPU large page size support compatible. Affected products include: Xen, Debian Debian Linux, Fedoraproject Fedora, Opensuse Leap. Version information: through 4.13..
RemediationAI
A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Implement rate limiting, set resource quotas, validate input sizes, use timeouts.
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Same weakness CWE-400 – Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
View allSame technique Privilege Escalation
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External POC / Exploit Code
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