SOC status:Duty analyst on shift

UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityModified

CVE-2019-18420

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.12.x allowing x86 PV guest OS users to cause a denial of service via a VCPUOP_initialise hypercall. hypercall_create_continuation() is a variadic function which uses a printf-like format string to interpret its…

MEDIUM 6.5EPSS 2.52%

Does this matter?

Lower severity and a low EPSS score (2.52%). Track it; it rarely justifies an emergency change on its own.

Description

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.12.x allowing x86 PV guest OS users to cause a denial of service via a VCPUOP_initialise hypercall. hypercall_create_continuation() is a variadic function which uses a printf-like format string to interpret its parameters. Error handling for a bad format character was done using BUG(), which crashes Xen. One path, via the VCPUOP_initialise hypercall, has a bad format character. The BUG() can be hit if VCPUOP_initialise executes for a sufficiently long period of time for a continuation to be created. Malicious guests may cause a hypervisor crash, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS). Xen versions 4.6 and newer are vulnerable. Xen versions 4.5 and earlier are not vulnerable. Only x86 PV guests can exploit the vulnerability. HVM and PVH guests, and guests on ARM systems, cannot exploit the vulnerability.

CVSS 3.1
6.5 MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS
2.52% probability · 84th percentile
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-134
Affected
xen/xen · debian/debian linux · fedoraproject/fedora
Source
cve@mitre.org

References

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.