XEN : Security Vulnerabilities, CVEs, CVSS score between 4 and 6.99

The fixes for XSA-422 (Branch Type Confusion) and XSA-434 (Speculative Return Stack Overflow) are not IRQ-safe. It was believed that the mitigations always operated in contexts with IRQs disabled. However, the original XSA-254 fix for Meltdown (XPTI) deliberately left interrupts enabled on two entry paths; one unconditionally, and one conditionally on whether XPTI was active. As BTC/SRSO and Meltdown affect different CPU vendors, the mitigations are not active together by default. Therefore, there is a race condition whereby a malicious PV guest can bypass BTC/SRSO protections and launch a BTC/SRSO attack against Xen.

The current setup of the quarantine page tables assumes that the quarantine domain (dom_io) has been initialized with an address width of DEFAULT_DOMAIN_ADDRESS_WIDTH (48) and hence 4 page table levels. However dom_io being a PV domain gets the AMD-Vi IOMMU page tables levels based on the maximum (hot pluggable) RAM address, and hence on systems with no RAM above the 512GB mark only 3 page-table levels are configured in the IOMMU. On systems without RAM above the 512GB boundary amd_iommu_quarantine_init() will setup page tables for the scratch page with 4 levels, while the IOMMU will be configured to use 3 levels only, resulting in the last page table directory (PDE) effectively becoming a page table entry (PTE), and hence a device in quarantine mode gaining write access to the page destined to be a PDE. Due to this page table level mismatch, the sink page the device gets read/write access to is no longer cleared between device assignment, possibly leading to data leaks.

[This CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] AMD CPUs since ~2014 have extensions to normal x86 debugging functionality. Xen supports guests using these extensions. Unfortunately there are errors in Xen's handling of the guest state, leading to denials of service. 1) CVE-2023-34327 - An HVM vCPU can end up operating in the context of a previous vCPUs debug mask state. 2) CVE-2023-34328 - A PV vCPU can place a breakpoint over the live GDT. This allows the PV vCPU to exploit XSA-156 / CVE-2015-8104 and lock up the CPU entirely.

[This CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] AMD CPUs since ~2014 have extensions to normal x86 debugging functionality. Xen supports guests using these extensions. Unfortunately there are errors in Xen's handling of the guest state, leading to denials of service. 1) CVE-2023-34327 - An HVM vCPU can end up operating in the context of a previous vCPUs debug mask state. 2) CVE-2023-34328 - A PV vCPU can place a breakpoint over the live GDT. This allows the PV vCPU to exploit XSA-156 / CVE-2015-8104 and lock up the CPU entirely.

Closing of an event channel in the Linux kernel can result in a deadlock. This happens when the close is being performed in parallel to an unrelated Xen console action and the handling of a Xen console interrupt in an unprivileged guest. The closing of an event channel is e.g. triggered by removal of a paravirtual device on the other side. As this action will cause console messages to be issued on the other side quite often, the chance of triggering the deadlock is not neglectable. Note that 32-bit Arm-guests are not affected, as the 32-bit Linux kernel on Arm doesn't use queued-RW-locks, which are required to trigger the issue (on Arm32 a waiting writer doesn't block further readers to get the lock).

When a transaction is committed, C Xenstored will first check the quota is correct before attempting to commit any nodes. It would be possible that accounting is temporarily negative if a node has been removed outside of the transaction. Unfortunately, some versions of C Xenstored are assuming that the quota cannot be negative and are using assert() to confirm it. This will lead to C Xenstored crash when tools are built without -DNDEBUG (this is the default).

Cortex-A77 cores (r0p0 and r1p0) are affected by erratum 1508412 where software, under certain circumstances, could deadlock a core due to the execution of either a load to device or non-cacheable memory, and either a store exclusive or register read of the Physical Address Register (PAR_EL1) in close proximity.

An issue in “Zen 2” CPUs, under specific microarchitectural circumstances, may allow an attacker to potentially access sensitive information.

A division-by-zero error on some AMD processors can potentially return speculative data resulting in loss of confidentiality. 

x86/HVM pinned cache attributes mis-handling T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] To allow cachability control for HVM guests with passed through devices, an interface exists to explicitly override defaults which would otherwise be put in place. While not exposed to the affected guests themselves, the interface specifically exists for domains controlling such guests. This interface may therefore be used by not fully privileged entities, e.g. qemu running deprivileged in Dom0 or qemu running in a so called stub-domain. With this exposure it is an issue that - the number of the such controlled regions was unbounded (CVE-2022-42333), - installation and removal of such regions was not properly serialized (CVE-2022-42334).

x86: speculative vulnerability in 32bit SYSCALL path Due to an oversight in the very original Spectre/Meltdown security work (XSA-254), one entrypath performs its speculation-safety actions too late. In some configurations, there is an unprotected RET instruction which can be attacked with a variety of speculative attacks.

Xenstore: Guests can create arbitrary number of nodes via transactions T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] In case a node has been created in a transaction and it is later deleted in the same transaction, the transaction will be terminated with an error. As this error is encountered only when handling the deleted node at transaction finalization, the transaction will have been performed partially and without updating the accounting information. This will enable a malicious guest to create arbitrary number of nodes.

Xenstore: Guests can create arbitrary number of nodes via transactions T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] In case a node has been created in a transaction and it is later deleted in the same transaction, the transaction will be terminated with an error. As this error is encountered only when handling the deleted node at transaction finalization, the transaction will have been performed partially and without updating the accounting information. This will enable a malicious guest to create arbitrary number of nodes.

Oxenstored 32->31 bit integer truncation issues Integers in Ocaml are 63 or 31 bits of signed precision. The Ocaml Xenbus library takes a C uint32_t out of the ring and casts it directly to an Ocaml integer. In 64-bit Ocaml builds this is fine, but in 32-bit builds, it truncates off the most significant bit, and then creates unsigned/signed confusion in the remainder. This in turn can feed a negative value into logic not expecting a negative value, resulting in unexpected exceptions being thrown. The unexpected exception is not handled suitably, creating a busy-loop trying (and failing) to take the bad packet out of the xenstore ring.

Xenstore: Cooperating guests can create arbitrary numbers of nodes T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] Since the fix of XSA-322 any Xenstore node owned by a removed domain will be modified to be owned by Dom0. This will allow two malicious guests working together to create an arbitrary number of Xenstore nodes. This is possible by domain A letting domain B write into domain A's local Xenstore tree. Domain B can then create many nodes and reboot. The nodes created by domain B will now be owned by Dom0. By repeating this process over and over again an arbitrary number of nodes can be created, as Dom0's number of nodes isn't limited by Xenstore quota.

Xenstore: Cooperating guests can create arbitrary numbers of nodes T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] Since the fix of XSA-322 any Xenstore node owned by a removed domain will be modified to be owned by Dom0. This will allow two malicious guests working together to create an arbitrary number of Xenstore nodes. This is possible by domain A letting domain B write into domain A's local Xenstore tree. Domain B can then create many nodes and reboot. The nodes created by domain B will now be owned by Dom0. By repeating this process over and over again an arbitrary number of nodes can be created, as Dom0's number of nodes isn't limited by Xenstore quota.

Xenstore: Guests can crash xenstored via exhausting the stack Xenstored is using recursion for some Xenstore operations (e.g. for deleting a sub-tree of Xenstore nodes). With sufficiently deep nesting levels this can result in stack exhaustion on xenstored, leading to a crash of xenstored.

Xenstore: Guests can cause Xenstore to not free temporary memory When working on a request of a guest, xenstored might need to allocate quite large amounts of memory temporarily. This memory is freed only after the request has been finished completely. A request is regarded to be finished only after the guest has read the response message of the request from the ring page. Thus a guest not reading the response can cause xenstored to not free the temporary memory. This can result in memory shortages causing Denial of Service (DoS) of xenstored.

Xenstore: guests can let run xenstored out of memory T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] Malicious guests can cause xenstored to allocate vast amounts of memory, eventually resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) of xenstored. There are multiple ways how guests can cause large memory allocations in xenstored: - - by issuing new requests to xenstored without reading the responses, causing the responses to be buffered in memory - - by causing large number of watch events to be generated via setting up multiple xenstore watches and then e.g. deleting many xenstore nodes below the watched path - - by creating as many nodes as allowed with the maximum allowed size and path length in as many transactions as possible - - by accessing many nodes inside a transaction

Xenstore: guests can let run xenstored out of memory T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] Malicious guests can cause xenstored to allocate vast amounts of memory, eventually resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) of xenstored. There are multiple ways how guests can cause large memory allocations in xenstored: - - by issuing new requests to xenstored without reading the responses, causing the responses to be buffered in memory - - by causing large number of watch events to be generated via setting up multiple xenstore watches and then e.g. deleting many xenstore nodes below the watched path - - by creating as many nodes as allowed with the maximum allowed size and path length in as many transactions as possible - - by accessing many nodes inside a transaction

Xenstore: guests can let run xenstored out of memory T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] Malicious guests can cause xenstored to allocate vast amounts of memory, eventually resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) of xenstored. There are multiple ways how guests can cause large memory allocations in xenstored: - - by issuing new requests to xenstored without reading the responses, causing the responses to be buffered in memory - - by causing large number of watch events to be generated via setting up multiple xenstore watches and then e.g. deleting many xenstore nodes below the watched path - - by creating as many nodes as allowed with the maximum allowed size and path length in as many transactions as possible - - by accessing many nodes inside a transaction

Xenstore: guests can let run xenstored out of memory T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] Malicious guests can cause xenstored to allocate vast amounts of memory, eventually resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) of xenstored. There are multiple ways how guests can cause large memory allocations in xenstored: - - by issuing new requests to xenstored without reading the responses, causing the responses to be buffered in memory - - by causing large number of watch events to be generated via setting up multiple xenstore watches and then e.g. deleting many xenstore nodes below the watched path - - by creating as many nodes as allowed with the maximum allowed size and path length in as many transactions as possible - - by accessing many nodes inside a transaction

Xenstore: guests can let run xenstored out of memory T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] Malicious guests can cause xenstored to allocate vast amounts of memory, eventually resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) of xenstored. There are multiple ways how guests can cause large memory allocations in xenstored: - - by issuing new requests to xenstored without reading the responses, causing the responses to be buffered in memory - - by causing large number of watch events to be generated via setting up multiple xenstore watches and then e.g. deleting many xenstore nodes below the watched path - - by creating as many nodes as allowed with the maximum allowed size and path length in as many transactions as possible - - by accessing many nodes inside a transaction

Xenstore: guests can let run xenstored out of memory T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] Malicious guests can cause xenstored to allocate vast amounts of memory, eventually resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) of xenstored. There are multiple ways how guests can cause large memory allocations in xenstored: - - by issuing new requests to xenstored without reading the responses, causing the responses to be buffered in memory - - by causing large number of watch events to be generated via setting up multiple xenstore watches and then e.g. deleting many xenstore nodes below the watched path - - by creating as many nodes as allowed with the maximum allowed size and path length in as many transactions as possible - - by accessing many nodes inside a transaction

Xenstore: guests can let run xenstored out of memory T[his CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] Malicious guests can cause xenstored to allocate vast amounts of memory, eventually resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) of xenstored. There are multiple ways how guests can cause large memory allocations in xenstored: - - by issuing new requests to xenstored without reading the responses, causing the responses to be buffered in memory - - by causing large number of watch events to be generated via setting up multiple xenstore watches and then e.g. deleting many xenstore nodes below the watched path - - by creating as many nodes as allowed with the maximum allowed size and path length in as many transactions as possible - - by accessing many nodes inside a transaction