CVE-2018-12893 Affecting xen package, versions <4.11.0-r0


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

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Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.06% (29th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-ALPINE316-XEN-2845548
  • published21 Jul 2020
  • disclosed2 Jul 2018

Introduced: 2 Jul 2018

CVE-2018-12893  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade Alpine:3.16 xen to version 4.11.0-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 4.10.x. One of the fixes in XSA-260 added some safety checks to help prevent Xen livelocking with debug exceptions. Unfortunately, due to an oversight, at least one of these safety checks can be triggered by a guest. A malicious PV guest can crash Xen, leading to a Denial of Service. All Xen systems which have applied the XSA-260 fix are vulnerable. Only x86 systems are vulnerable. ARM systems are not vulnerable. Only x86 PV guests can exploit the vulnerability. x86 HVM and PVH guests cannot exploit the vulnerability. An attacker needs to be able to control hardware debugging facilities to exploit the vulnerability, but such permissions are typically available to unprivileged users.