High severity · published Apr 14, 2020
CVE-2020-11739
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.13.x, allowing guest OS users to cause a denial of service or possibly gain privileges because of missing memory barriers in read-write…
7.8
CVSS
0.3%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.13.x, allowing guest OS users to cause a denial of service or possibly gain privileges because of missing memory barriers in read-write unlock paths. The read-write unlock paths don't contain a memory barrier. On Arm, this means a processor is allowed to re-order the memory access with the preceding ones. In other words, the unlock may be seen by another processor before all the memory accesses within the "critical" section. As a consequence, it may be possible to have a writer executing a critical section at the same time as readers or another writer. In other words, many of the assumptions (e.g., a variable cannot be modified after a check) in the critical sections are not safe anymore. The read-write locks are used in hypercalls (such as grant-table ones), so a malicious guest could exploit the race. For instance, there is a small window where Xen can leak memory if XENMAPSPACE_grant_table is used concurrently. A malicious guest may be able to leak memory, or cause a hypervisor crash resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS). Information leak and privilege escalation cannot be excluded.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
High
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Changed
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.3% · higher than 21% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
DL
Debian Linux · Debian
10.0 · source: NVD
FE
Fedora · Fedoraproject
30; 31; 32 · source: NVD
LE
Leap · Opensuse
15.1 · source: NVD
XE
Xen · Xen
through 4.13.0; 4.13.0; 4.13.0 · source: NVD