Xen Paging Tables Race Condition (XSA-328)

high Nessus Plugin ID 149089

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Synopsis

The remote Xen hypervisor installation is missing a security update.

Description

According to its self-reported version number, the Xen hypervisor installed on the remote host is affected by an issue allowing Intel guest OS users to gain privileges or cause a denial of service because of non-atomic modification of a live EPT PTE. When mapping guest EPT (nested paging) tables, Xen would in some circumstances use a series of non-atomic bitfield writes. Depending on the compiler version and optimisation flags, Xen might expose a dangerous partially written PTE to the hardware, which an attacker might be able to race to exploit. A guest administrator or perhaps even an unprivileged guest user might be able to cause denial of service, data corruption, or privilege escalation. Only systems using Intel CPUs are vulnerable. Systems using AMD CPUs, and Arm systems, are not vulnerable. Only systems using nested paging (hap, aka nested paging, aka in this case Intel EPT) are vulnerable. Only HVM and PVH guests can exploit the vulnerability. The presence and scope of the vulnerability depends on the precise optimisations performed by the compiler used to build Xen. If the compiler generates (a) a single 64-bit write, or (b) a series of read-modify-write operations in the same order as the source code, the hypervisor is not vulnerable. For example, in one test build using GCC 8.3 with normal settings, the compiler generated multiple (unlocked) read-modify-write operations in source-code order, which did not constitute a vulnerability. We have not been able to survey compilers; consequently we cannot say which compiler(s) might produce vulnerable code (with which code-generation options). The source code clearly violates the C rules, and thus should be considered vulnerable.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Apply the appropriate patch according to the vendor advisory.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 149089

File Name: xen_server_XSA-328.nasl

Version: 1.2

Type: local

Family: Misc.

Published: 4/29/2021

Updated: 4/30/2021

Configuration: Enable paranoid mode

Supported Sensors: Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: High

Score: 7.3

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.4

Temporal Score: 3.3

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2020-15567

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.8

Temporal Score: 6.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:xen:xen

Required KB Items: Settings/ParanoidReport, installed_sw/Xen Hypervisor

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 7/7/2020

Vulnerability Publication Date: 7/7/2020

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2020-15567

Detections

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