CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2020-25595

Improper Privilege Management

Published: Sep 23, 2020 | Modified: Nov 07, 2023
CVSS 3.x
7.8
HIGH
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.x
6.1 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:C
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
7 MODERATE
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:H
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. The PCI passthrough code improperly uses register data. Code paths in Xens MSI handling have been identified that act on unsanitized values read back from device hardware registers. While devices strictly compliant with PCI specifications shouldnt be able to affect these registers, experience shows that its very common for devices to have out-of-spec backdoor operations that can affect the result of these reads. A not fully trusted guest may be able to crash Xen, leading to a Denial of Service (DoS) for the entire system. Privilege escalation and information leaks cannot be excluded. All versions of Xen supporting PCI passthrough are affected. Only x86 systems are vulnerable. Arm systems are not vulnerable. Only guests with passed through PCI devices may be able to leverage the vulnerability. Only systems passing through devices with out-of-spec (backdoor) functionality can cause issues. Experience shows that such out-of-spec functionality is common; unless you have reason to believe that your device does not have such functionality, its better to assume that it does.

Weakness

The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Xen Xen * 4.14.0 (including)
Xen Ubuntu bionic *
Xen Ubuntu esm-infra/bionic *
Xen Ubuntu esm-infra/xenial *
Xen Ubuntu focal *
Xen Ubuntu groovy *
Xen Ubuntu hirsute *
Xen Ubuntu impish *
Xen Ubuntu trusty *
Xen Ubuntu xenial *

Potential Mitigations

References