Race Condition Affecting xen package, versions <4.13.0-r0


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Snyk's Security Team recommends NVD's CVSS assessment. Learn more

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.39% (74th percentile)

Do your applications use this vulnerable package?

In a few clicks we can analyze your entire application and see what components are vulnerable in your application, and suggest you quick fixes.

Test your applications

Snyk Learn

Learn about Race Condition vulnerabilities in an interactive lesson.

Start learning
  • Snyk IDSNYK-ALPINE316-XEN-2844978
  • published21 Jul 2020
  • disclosed11 Dec 2019

Introduced: 11 Dec 2019

CVE-2019-19580  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-362  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade Alpine:3.16 xen to version 4.13.0-r0 or higher.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream xen package and not the xen package as distributed by Alpine. See How to fix? for Alpine:3.16 relevant fixed versions and status.

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.12.x allowing x86 PV guest OS users to gain host OS privileges by leveraging race conditions in pagetable promotion and demotion operations, because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2019-18421. XSA-299 addressed several critical issues in restartable PV type change operations. Despite extensive testing and auditing, some corner cases were missed. A malicious PV guest administrator may be able to escalate their privilege to that of the host. All security-supported versions of Xen are vulnerable. Only x86 systems are affected. Arm systems are not affected. Only x86 PV guests can leverage the vulnerability. x86 HVM and PVH guests cannot leverage the vulnerability. Note that these attacks require very precise timing, which may be difficult to exploit in practice.

CVSS Scores

version 3.1