CVE-2020-11739

NameCVE-2020-11739
DescriptionAn issue was discovered in Xen through 4.13.x, allowing guest OS users to cause a denial of service or possibly gain privileges because of missing memory barriers in read-write unlock paths. The read-write unlock paths don't contain a memory barrier. On Arm, this means a processor is allowed to re-order the memory access with the preceding ones. In other words, the unlock may be seen by another processor before all the memory accesses within the "critical" section. As a consequence, it may be possible to have a writer executing a critical section at the same time as readers or another writer. In other words, many of the assumptions (e.g., a variable cannot be modified after a check) in the critical sections are not safe anymore. The read-write locks are used in hypercalls (such as grant-table ones), so a malicious guest could exploit the race. For instance, there is a small window where Xen can leak memory if XENMAPSPACE_grant_table is used concurrently. A malicious guest may be able to leak memory, or cause a hypervisor crash resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS). Information leak and privilege escalation cannot be excluded.
SourceCVE (at NVD; CERT, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)
ReferencesDSA-4723-1

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source PackageReleaseVersionStatus
xen (PTS)jessie, jessie (lts)4.4.4lts5-0+deb8u1vulnerable
stretch (security), stretch (lts), stretch4.8.5.final+shim4.10.4-1+deb9u12vulnerable
buster (security), buster, buster (lts)4.11.4+107-gef32c7afa2-1fixed
bullseye4.14.6-1fixed
bullseye (security)4.14.5+94-ge49571868d-1fixed
bookworm4.17.3+10-g091466ba55-1~deb12u1fixed
sid, trixie4.17.3+36-g54dacb5c02-1fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

PackageTypeReleaseFixed VersionUrgencyOriginDebian Bugs
xensourcewheezy(unfixed)end-of-life
xensourcejessie(unfixed)end-of-life
xensourcestretch(unfixed)end-of-life
xensourcebuster4.11.4+24-gddaaccbbab-1~deb10u1DSA-4723-1
xensource(unstable)4.11.4-1

Notes

[stretch] - xen <end-of-life> (DSA 4602-1)
[jessie] - xen <end-of-life> (Not supported in jessie LTS)
https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-314.html

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