CVE-2023-46836 Affecting xen package, versions <4.17.2-r4
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Test your applications- Snyk ID SNYK-ALPINE320-XEN-7012701
- published 23 May 2024
- disclosed 5 Jan 2024
Introduced: 5 Jan 2024
CVE-2023-46836 Open this link in a new tabHow to fix?
Upgrade Alpine:3.20 xen to version 4.17.2-r4 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:3.20 relevant fixed versions and status.
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.