Bug 502109 (CVE-2009-1242)

Summary: CVE-2009-1242 kernel: x86 guest OS can crash the system by writing to the EFER
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: Chuck Ebbert <cebbert>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Red Hat Product Security <security-response-team>
Status: CLOSED ERRATA QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: pmatouse, tcallawa
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
URL: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-1242
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2012-03-28 08:35:20 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Chuck Ebbert 2009-05-21 22:26:55 UTC
Description of problem:
The vmx_set_msr function in arch/x86/kvm/vmx.c in the VMX implementation in the KVM subsystem in the Linux kernel before 2.6.29.1 on the i386 platform allows guest OS users to cause a denial of service (OOPS) by setting the EFER_LME (aka "Long mode enable") bit in the Extended Feature Enable Register (EFER) model-specific register, which is specific to the x86_64 platform. 

Reference:
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff_plain;h=16175a796d061833aacfbd9672235f2d2725df65

Comment 1 Eugene Teo (Security Response) 2009-05-22 02:51:18 UTC
The bug was introduced in 6aa8b732ca (Dec 10, 2006).

This issue did not affect the versions of Linux kernel as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1, 3, 4, 5 or Red Hat Enterprise MRG.

http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2009-1242
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.security.oss.general/1606

Comment 2 Fedora Update System 2009-05-22 09:01:37 UTC
kernel-2.6.27.24-170.2.68.fc10 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 10.
http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/kernel-2.6.27.24-170.2.68.fc10

Comment 3 Fedora Update System 2009-05-25 21:09:15 UTC
kernel-2.6.27.24-170.2.68.fc10 has been pushed to the Fedora 10 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.