Medium severity · published Sep 23, 2020
CVE-2020-25596
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x
5.5
CVSS
0.5%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. x86 PV guest kernels can experience denial of service via SYSENTER. The SYSENTER instruction leaves various state sanitization activities to software. One of Xen's sanitization paths injects a #GP fault, and incorrectly delivers it twice to the guest. This causes the guest kernel to observe a kernel-privilege #GP fault (typically fatal) rather than a user-privilege #GP fault (usually converted into SIGSEGV/etc.). Malicious or buggy userspace can crash the guest kernel, resulting in a VM Denial of Service. All versions of Xen from 3.2 onwards are vulnerable. Only x86 systems are vulnerable. ARM platforms are not vulnerable. Only x86 systems that support the SYSENTER instruction in 64bit mode are vulnerable. This is believed to be Intel, Centaur, and Shanghai CPUs. AMD and Hygon CPUs are not believed to be vulnerable. Only x86 PV guests can exploit the vulnerability. x86 PVH / HVM guests cannot exploit the vulnerability.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.5% · higher than 43% 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
31; 32; 33 · source: NVD
LE
Leap · Opensuse
15.2 · source: NVD
XE
Xen · Xen
3.2.0 through 4.14.0 · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-25596
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-25596
Third Party Advisory
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-10/msg00008.html
lists.fedoraproject.org
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/4JRXMKEMQRQYWYEPHVBIWUEAVQ3LU4FN/
lists.fedoraproject.org
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/DA633Y3G5KX7MKRN4PFEGM3IVTJMBEOM/
lists.fedoraproject.org
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/RJZERRBJN6E6STDCHT4JHP4MI6TKBCJE/
Third Party Advisory
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202011-06
Third Party Advisory
https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4769
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