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.
Published 2020-09-23 22:15:13
Updated 2022-11-21 14:24:58
Source MITRE
View at NVD,   CVE.org
Vulnerability category: Denial of service

Products affected by CVE-2020-25596

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2020-25596

0.03%
Probability of exploitation activity in the next 30 days EPSS Score History
~ 6 %
Percentile, the proportion of vulnerabilities that are scored at or less

CVSS scores for CVE-2020-25596

Base Score Base Severity CVSS Vector Exploitability Score Impact Score Score Source First Seen
2.1
LOW AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
3.9
2.9
NIST
5.5
MEDIUM CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
1.8
3.6
NIST

CWE ids for CVE-2020-25596

References for CVE-2020-25596

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