Denial of service in Linux kernel KVM SEV API

1) Incomplete cleanup

EUVDB-ID: #VU68515

Risk: Low

CVSSv3.1: 4.8 [CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2022-0171

CWE-ID: CWE-459 - Incomplete cleanup

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a local user to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

The vulnerability exists due to incomplete cleanup in KVM SEV API. A local non-root (host) user-level application can crash the host kernel by creating a confidential guest VM instance in AMD CPU that supports Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV).

Mitigation

Install updates from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Linux kernel: All versions

External links

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2038940
http://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=683412ccf61294d727ead4a73d97397396e69a6b
http://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-0171
http://www.debian.org/security/2022/dsa-5257

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

No. This vulnerability can be exploited locally. The attacker should have authentication credentials and successfully authenticate on the system.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.