[Xen-announce] Xen Security Advisory 259 - x86: PV guest may crash Xen with XPTI

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

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                    Xen Security Advisory XSA-259
                              version 2

                 x86: PV guest may crash Xen with XPTI

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

Public release.

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

The workaround for the Meltdown vulnerability (XSA-254) failed to deal
with an error code path connecting the INT 80 handling with general
exception handling.  This results in an unconditional write attempt of
the value zero to an address near 2^64, in cases where a PV guest has no
handler installed for INT 80 on one of its vCPU-s.

IMPACT
======

A malicious or buggy guest may cause a hypervisor crash, resulting in
a Denial of Service (DoS) affecting the entire host.

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

All Xen versions which the XSA-254 fixes were applied to are vulnerable.

Only x86 systems are vulnerable.  ARM systems are not vulnerable.

Only x86 PV guests can exploit the vulnerability.  x86 PVH and HVM
guests cannot exploit the vulnerability.

MITIGATION
==========

Running only PVH or HVM guests avoids the vulnerability.

CREDITS
=======

This issue was discovered by Andrew Cooper of Citrix.

RESOLUTION
==========

Applying the appropriate attached patch resolves this issue.

xsa259.patch          xen-unstable, Xen 4.10.x ... xen 4.7.x
xsa259-4.6.patch      Xen 4.6.x

$ sha256sum xsa259*
5c14a90af066c952974324b361e2a428c280f876b854f0c85a78e8579054a4d1  xsa259.meta
ff2efb5eb2502ded988d0aa15351030a15494a9e2223eafbb88377a8e4d39dcb  xsa259.patch
c40bc8802077cf73f8393fb50574b7c7efbc4d127e202b0ebd757d34aa07aac3  
xsa259-4.6.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is then no longer applicable.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: xsa259.meta
Description: Binary data

Attachment: xsa259.patch
Description: Binary data

Attachment: xsa259-4.6.patch
Description: Binary data

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