Xen Guest Destruction Memory Leak DoS (XSA-207)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 97388

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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 missing a security update. It is, therefore, affected by a memory leak issue due to improper cleanup during guest destruction. A guest attacker can exploit this issue, via frequent rebooting, to eventually exhaust the system memory of the host system, resulting in a denial service condition. Note that Intel systems and systems without IOMMU/SMMU hardware are not affected by this vulnerability.

Nessus has not tested for this vulnerability but has instead relied only on the changeset versions based on the xen.git change log.
Additionally, Nessus did not check guest hardware configurations or if patches were applied manually to the source code before a recompile and reinstall.

Solution

Apply the appropriate patch according to the vendor advisory.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 97388

File Name: xen_server_XSA-207.nasl

Version: 1.4

Type: local

Family: Misc.

Published: 2/24/2017

Updated: 8/8/2018

Configuration: Enable paranoid mode

Supported Sensors: Nessus

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:xen:xen

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

Patch Publication Date: 2/15/2016

Vulnerability Publication Date: 2/15/2017

Detections

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