Vulnerability identifier: #VU49132

Vulnerability risk: Low

CVSSv3.1: 5.2 [CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2020-29482

CWE-ID: CWE-426

Exploitation vector: Local

Exploit availability: No

Vulnerable software:
Xen
Server applications / Virtualization software

Vendor: Xen Project

Description

The vulnerability allows a local privileged user to a crash the entire system.

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. A guest may access xenstore paths via absolute paths containing a full pathname, or via a relative path, which implicitly includes /local/domain/$DOMID for their own domain id. Management tools must access paths in guests' namespaces, necessarily using absolute paths. oxenstored imposes a pathname limit that is applied solely to the relative or absolute path specified by the client. Therefore, a guest can create paths in its own namespace which are too long for management tools to access. Depending on the toolstack in use, a malicious guest administrator might cause some management tools and debugging operations to fail. For example, a guest administrator can cause "xenstore-ls -r" to fail. However, a guest administrator cannot prevent the host administrator from tearing down the domain. All systems using oxenstored are vulnerable. Building and using oxenstored is the default in the upstream Xen distribution, if the Ocaml compiler is available. Systems using C xenstored are not vulnerable.

Mitigation
Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Xen: 4.0.0 - 4.14.1

---

External links
http://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4812
http://xenbits.xenproject.org/xsa/advisory-323.html

---

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.