An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. There is a lack of preemption in evtchn_reset() / evtchn_destroy(). In particular, the FIFO event channel model allows guests to have a large number of event channels active at a time. Closing all of these (when resetting all event channels or when cleaning up after the guest) may take extended periods of time. So far, there was no arrangement for preemption at suitable intervals, allowing a CPU to spend an almost unbounded amount of time in the processing of these operations. Malicious or buggy guest kernels can mount a Denial of Service (DoS) attack affecting the entire system. All Xen versions are vulnerable in principle. Whether versions 4.3 and older are vulnerable depends on underlying hardware characteristics.
CVSS Details
- CVSS 3.1 Base Score: 5.5
- CVSS 3.1 Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)
Covered by Rapid7
| Product | Vendor Advisory | Solution File | Added | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine Linux | — | Upgrade xen | Oct 22, 2020 | Sep 23, 2020 |
| Debian | — | Upgrade xen | Oct 5, 2020 | Sep 23, 2020 |
| Gentoo Linux | — | Upgrade app-emulation/xen-tools.Upgrade app-emulation/xen. | Nov 12, 2020 | Sep 23, 2020 |
| Redhat_linux | — | No solution exists | Jul 9, 2025 | Sep 23, 2020 |
| Suse | — | Upgrade xen-develUpgrade xen-tools-domUUpgrade xen-tools-xendomains-wait-diskUpgrade xen-libsUpgrade xen-kmp-defaultUpgrade xenUpgrade xen-libs-32bitUpgrade xen-toolsUpgrade xen-doc-htmlUpgrade xen-kmp-pae | Feb 7, 2021 | Sep 23, 2020 |
| Ubuntu | — | Upgrade libxenevtchn1Upgrade xen-utils-4.11Upgrade xen-utils-commonUpgrade xen-hypervisor-4.11-armhfUpgrade libxenmisc4.11Upgrade xen-hypervisor-4.11-arm64Upgrade libxendevicemodel1Upgrade libxengnttab1Upgrade xen-hypervisor-4.11-amd64Upgrade xenstore-utils | Sep 20, 2022 | Sep 23, 2020 |
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