Privilege escalation in Xen - CVE-2017-8904

 

Privilege escalation in Xen - CVE-2017-8904

Published: May 31, 2017 / Updated: May 31, 2017


Vulnerability identifier: #VU6844
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4: 5.1 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
CVE-ID: CVE-2017-8904
CWE-ID: CWE-264
Exploitation vector: Local access
Exploit availability: No public exploit available

Vulnerability details

The vulnerability allows a local attacker to gain elevated privileges on the target system.

The weakness exists due to an error in the GNTTABOP_transfer operation. A local attacker can transfer a page to another guest, access all of the system memory and execute arbitrary code on the host OS with elevated privileges.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerability results in privilege escalation.

Affected software

Xen
Gentoo Linux
Fedora
xen (Alpine package)
Gentoo app-emulation/xen
Gentoo app-emulation/xen-pvgrub
Gentoo app-emulation/xen-tools
xen

How to mitigate CVE-2017-8904

Install update from vendor's website.

xen (Alpine package) - update to 4.5.5-r2
xen - addressed in versions 4.6.5-6.fc24, 4.7.2-6.fc25, 4.8.1-2.fc26

External References

Related Security Bulletins