Xen
CVE-2020-25600
MEDIUM
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
ASVS 5.0
V15 - Secure Coding and Architecture Bounds checking, write limits
MITRE ATT&CK
2 techniques across 2 tactics: Execution, Privilege Escalation The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | CVSS score of 5.5 (MEDIUM). Attack characteristics: local attack vector, low complexity, low privileges required, no user interaction not required. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A local attacker with access to the system could write data beyond allocated buffer boundaries leading to code execution or crashes. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
RemediationAI
No vendor patch is available at time of analysis. Monitor vendor advisories for updates. Validate write boundaries, use memory-safe languages, enable compiler protections (ASLR, stack canaries).
Affects your stack
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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 Out-of-bounds Write (CWE-787), which allows attackers to write data beyond allocated buffer boundaries leading to code execution or crashes. An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. Out of bounds event channels are available to 32-bit x86 domains. The so called 2-level event channel model imposes different limits on the number of usable event channels for 32-bit x86 domains vs 64-bit or Arm (either bitness) ones. 32-bit x86 domains can use only 1023 channels, due to limited space in their shared (between guest and Xen) information structure, whereas all other domains can use up to 4095 in this model. The recording of the respective limit during domain initialization, however, has occurred at a time where domains are still deemed to be 64-bit ones, prior to actually honoring respective domain properties. At the point domains get recognized as 32-bit ones, the limit didn't get updated accordingly. Due to this misbehavior in Xen, 32-bit domains (including Domain 0) servicing other domains may observe event channel allocations to succeed when they should really fail. Subsequent use of such event channels would then possibly lead to corruption of other parts of the shared info structure. An unprivileged guest may cause another domain, in particular Domain 0, to misbehave. This may lead to a Denial of Service (DoS) for the entire system. All Xen versions from 4.4 onwards are vulnerable. Xen versions 4.3 and earlier are not vulnerable. Only x86 32-bit domains servicing other domains are vulnerable. Arm systems, as well as x86 64-bit domains, are not vulnerable. Affected products include: Xen, Fedoraproject Fedora, Opensuse Leap, Debian Debian Linux. Version information: through 4.14..
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- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
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Severity by source
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. Out of bounds event channels are available to 32-bit x86 domains. The so called 2-level event channel model imposes different limits on the number of usable event channels for 32-bit x86 domains vs 64-bit or Arm (either bitness) ones. 32-bit x86 domains can use only 1023 channels, due to limited space in their shared (between guest and Xen) information structure, whereas all other domains can use up to 4095 in this model. The recording of the respective limit during domain initialization, however, has occurred at a time where domains are still deemed to be 64-bit ones, prior to actually honoring respective domain properties. At the point domains get recognized as 32-bit ones, the limit didn't get updated accordingly. Due to this misbehavior in Xen, 32-bit domains (including Domain 0) servicing other domains may observe event channel allocations to succeed when they should really fail. Subsequent use of such event channels would then possibly lead to corruption of other parts of the shared info structure. An unprivileged guest may cause another domain, in particular Domain 0, to misbehave. This may lead to a Denial of Service (DoS) for the entire system. All Xen versions from 4.4 onwards are vulnerable. Xen versions 4.3 and earlier are not vulnerable. Only x86 32-bit domains servicing other domains are vulnerable. Arm systems, as well as x86 64-bit domains, are not vulnerable.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
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.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
A buffer overflow occurs when a program writes more data to a memory buffer than it was allocated to hold, causing the excess data to spill into adjacent memory regions.
Memory corruption occurs when a program writes data beyond the boundaries of allocated memory regions or accesses memory in unintended ways, violating the integrity of the process's address space.
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
The x86-64 kernel system-call functionality in Xen 4.1.2 and earlier, as used in Citrix XenServer 6.0.2 and earlier and
The Floppy Disk Controller (FDC) in QEMU, as used in Xen 4.5.x and earlier and KVM, allows local guest users to cause a
A statement in the System Programming Guide of the Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manual (SDM) wa
The AdSanity plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to arbitrary file uploads due to missing file type validation in the 'aj
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.9.x allowing x86 PV guest OS users to cause a denial of service (unbounded recu
An issue (known as XSA-212) was discovered in Xen, with fixes available for 4.8.x, 4.7.x, 4.6.x, 4.5.x, and 4.4.x. Rated
The C+ mode offload emulation in the RTL8139 network card device model in QEMU, as used in Xen 4.5.x and earlier, allows
Xen, when used on a system providing PV backends, allows local guest OS administrators to cause a denial of service (hos
x86 pv: Insufficient care with non-coherent mappings T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text exp
Xen through 4.8.x does not validate memory allocations during certain P2M operations, which allows guest OS users to obt
Xen through 4.8.x mishandles page transfer, which allows guest OS users to obtain privileged host OS access, aka XSA-217
The grant-table feature in Xen through 4.8.x does not ensure sufficient type counts for a GNTMAP_device_map and GNTMAP_h
GitHub PoC
Exploit-DB