CVE-2017-15595

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.9.x allowing x86 PV guest OS users to cause a denial of service (unbounded recursion, stack consumption, and hypervisor crash) or possibly gain privileges via crafted page-table stacking.

Weakness

The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:

• The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.

• The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/147.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/227.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/492.html

References

• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2017/11/msg00027.html
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/10/msg00021.html
• https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201801-14
• https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX228867
• https://www.debian.org/security/2017/dsa-4050
• https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/43014/
• https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-240.html
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2017/11/msg00027.html
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/10/msg00021.html
• https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201801-14
• https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX228867
• https://www.debian.org/security/2017/dsa-4050
• https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/43014/
• https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-240.html