CVE-2020-25601
In particular, the FIFO event channel model allows guests to have a large number of event channels active at a time.
Does this matter?
Lower severity and a low EPSS score (0.42%). Track it; it rarely justifies an emergency change on its own.
Description
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. There is a lack of preemption in evtchn_reset() / evtchn_destroy(). In particular, the FIFO event channel model allows guests to have a large number of event channels active at a time. Closing all of these (when resetting all event channels or when cleaning up after the guest) may take extended periods of time. So far, there was no arrangement for preemption at suitable intervals, allowing a CPU to spend an almost unbounded amount of time in the processing of these operations. Malicious or buggy guest kernels can mount a Denial of Service (DoS) attack affecting the entire system. All Xen versions are vulnerable in principle. Whether versions 4.3 and older are vulnerable depends on underlying hardware characteristics.
- CVSS 3.1
- 5.5 MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- EPSS
- 0.42% probability · 36th percentile
- Public exploits
- None in Exploit-DB
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Affected
- xen/xen · debian/debian linux · fedoraproject/fedora · opensuse/leap
- Source
- cve@mitre.org
EPSS 0.4% since 26 October 2026; no change recorded yet. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.
References
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-10/msg00008.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/4JRXMKEMQRQYWYEPHVBIWUEAVQ3LU4FN/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/DA633Y3G5KX7MKRN4PFEGM3IVTJMBEOM/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/RJZERRBJN6E6STDCHT4JHP4MI6TKBCJE/
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202011-06Third Party Advisory
- https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4769Third Party Advisory
- https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-344.htmlVendor Advisory
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-10/msg00008.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/4JRXMKEMQRQYWYEPHVBIWUEAVQ3LU4FN/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/DA633Y3G5KX7MKRN4PFEGM3IVTJMBEOM/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/RJZERRBJN6E6STDCHT4JHP4MI6TKBCJE/
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202011-06Third Party Advisory
- https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4769Third Party Advisory
- https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-344.htmlVendor Advisory
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.