[Xen-announce] Xen Security Advisory 249 - broken x86 shadow mode refcount overflow check

[Xen.org security team <security@xxxxxxx>]

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                    Xen Security Advisory XSA-249
                              version 2

            broken x86 shadow mode refcount overflow check

UPDATES IN VERSION 2
====================

Public release.

Provide metadata file.

ISSUE DESCRIPTION
=================

Pages being used to run x86 guests in shadow mode are reference counted
to track their uses.  Unfortunately the overflow check when trying to
obtain a new reference used a mask one bit wider than the reference
count actually is, rendering the entire check ineffective.

IMPACT
======

A malicious or buggy guest may cause a hypervisor crash, resulting in
a Denial of Service (DoS) affecting the entire host, or cause hypervisor
memory corruption.  We cannot rule out a guest being able to escalate
its privilege.

VULNERABLE SYSTEMS
==================

Xen versions 4.1 and later are affected.  Xen versions 4.0 and earlier
are not affected.

x86 systems are vulnerable.  ARM systems are not vulnerable.

Only guests run in shadow mode can exploit the vulnerability.

PV guests typically only run in shadow mode during live migration, as
well as for features like VM snapshot.

Note that save / restore does *not* use shadow mode, and so does not
expose this vulnerability.  Some downstreams also include a "non-live
migration" feature, which also does not use shadow mode (and thus does
not expose this vulnerability).

HVM guests run in shadow mode on hardware without HAP support, or when
HAP is disabled (globally or in the VM configuration file).  Live
migration does not affect an HVM guest's use of shadow mode.

MITIGATION
==========

For HVM guest explicitly configured to use shadow paging (e.g. via the
`hap=0' xl domain configuration file parameter), changing to HAP (e.g.
by setting `hap=1') will avoid exposing the vulnerability to those
guests.  HAP is the default (in upstream Xen), where the hardware
supports it; so this mitigation is only applicable if HAP has been
disabled by configuration.

For PV guests, avoiding their live migration avoids the vulnerability.

CREDITS
=======

This issue was discovered by Jan Beulich of SUSE.

RESOLUTION
==========

Applying the attached patch resolves this issue.

xsa249.patch           xen-unstable, Xen 4.9.x ... 4.5.x

$ sha256sum xsa249*
38a4b8033d634e22939ad42b882c35e46482782619e3e03b968a2f6489e459c9  xsa249.meta
e99066b0171d4757c6a66e1223aabe01e990de2d0dc50416936e064e6e750d00  xsa249.patch
$

DEPLOYMENT DURING EMBARGO
=========================

Deployment of the patches and/or mitigations described above (or
others which are substantially similar) is permitted during the
embargo, even on public-facing systems with untrusted guest users and
administrators.

But: Distribution of updated software is prohibited (except to other
members of the predisclosure list).

Predisclosure list members who wish to deploy significantly different
patches and/or mitigations, please contact the Xen Project Security
Team.

(Note: this during-embargo deployment notice is retained in
post-embargo publicly released Xen Project advisories, even though it
is then no longer applicable.  This is to enable the community to have
oversight of the Xen Project Security Team's decisionmaking.)

For more information about permissible uses of embargoed information,
consult the Xen Project community's agreed Security Policy:
  http://www.xenproject.org/security-policy.html
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Attachment: xsa249.meta
Description: Binary data

Attachment: xsa249.patch
Description: Binary data

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