An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. In the Ocaml xenstored implementation, the internal representation of the tree has special cases for the root node, because this node has no parent. Unfortunately, permissions were not checked for certain operations on the root node. Unprivileged guests can get and modify permissions, list, and delete the root node. (Deleting the whole xenstore tree is a host-wide denial of service.) Achieving xenstore write access is also possible. 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.
CVSS Details
- CVSS 3.1 Base Score: 8.8
- CVSS 3.1 Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H)
Covered by Rapid7
| Product | Vendor Advisory | Solution File | Added | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine Linux | — | Upgrade xen | Mar 26, 2024 | Dec 15, 2020 |
| Debian | — | Upgrade xen | Dec 17, 2020 | Dec 15, 2020 |
| Gentoo Linux | — | Upgrade app-emulation/xen. | Jul 13, 2021 | Dec 15, 2020 |
| Ubuntu | — | No solution exists | Jun 26, 2025 | Dec 15, 2020 |
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