Bug 1880158 (CVE-2020-25602) - CVE-2020-25602 xen: x86 pv: Crash when handling guest access to MSR_MISC_ENABLE (XSA-333)
Summary: CVE-2020-25602 xen: x86 pv: Crash when handling guest access to MSR_MISC_ENAB...
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG
Alias: CVE-2020-25602
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Red Hat Product Security
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On: 1881619
Blocks: 1877386
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2020-09-17 19:41 UTC by Guilherme de Almeida Suckevicz
Modified: 2021-02-16 19:13 UTC (History)
25 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in Xen, specifically when a guest accesses certain Model Specific Registers where Xen first reads the value from hardware to use as the basis for auditing the guest access. For the MISC_ENABLE MSR, an Intel specific MSR, this MSR read is performed without error handling for a #GP fault, which is the consequence of trying to read this MSR on non-Intel hardware. This flaw allows an unprivileged guest to crash Xen, leading to a denial of service (DoS) for the entire system. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2020-09-22 20:41:46 UTC
Embargoed:


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Description Guilherme de Almeida Suckevicz 2020-09-17 19:41:50 UTC
When a guest accesses certain Model Specific Registers, Xen first reads the value from hardware to use as the basis for auditing the guest access.

For the MISC_ENABLE MSR, which is an Intel specific MSR, this MSR read is performed without error handling for a #GP fault, which is the consequence of trying to read this MSR on non-Intel hardware.

Comment 1 Guilherme de Almeida Suckevicz 2020-09-17 19:41:55 UTC
Acknowledgments:

Name: the Xen project

Comment 2 Mauro Matteo Cascella 2020-09-18 16:41:11 UTC
Statement:

Only x86 systems which do not implement the MISC_ENABLE MSR (0x1a0) are vulnerable and only Xen versions 4.11 and onwards are vulnerable. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is not affected by this flaw, as it shipped an older version of Xen.

Comment 3 Mauro Matteo Cascella 2020-09-18 16:41:13 UTC
Mitigation:

Running only HVM/PVH guests avoids the vulnerability.

Comment 4 Mauro Matteo Cascella 2020-09-22 18:30:04 UTC
Created xen tracking bugs for this issue:

Affects: fedora-all [bug 1881619]

Comment 5 Product Security DevOps Team 2020-09-22 20:41:46 UTC
This bug is now closed. Further updates for individual products will be reflected on the CVE page(s):

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2020-25602

Comment 6 Mauro Matteo Cascella 2020-09-23 07:37:55 UTC
External References:

https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-333.html


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