CVE-2019-18424 Information

Description

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.12.x allowing attackers to gain host OS privileges via DMA in a situation where an untrusted domain has access to a physical device. This occurs because passed through PCI devices may corrupt host memory after deassignment. When a PCI device is assigned to an untrusted domain it is possible for that domain to program the device to DMA to an arbitrary address. The IOMMU is used to protect the host from malicious DMA by making sure that the device addresses can only target memory assigned to the guest. However when the guest domain is torn down or the device is deassigned the device is assigned back to dom0 thus allowing any in-flight DMA to potentially target critical host data. An untrusted domain with access to a physical device can DMA into host memory leading to privilege escalation. Only systems where guests are given direct access to physical devices capable of DMA (PCI pass-through) are vulnerable. Systems which do not use PCI pass-through are not vulnerable.

CVSS Vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Reference

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-11/msg00037.html http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/10/31/6 http://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-302.html https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/2BQKX7M2RHCWDBKNPX4KEBI3MJIH6AYZ/ https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/I5WWPW4BSZDDW7VHU427XTVXV7ROOFFW/ https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/IZYATWNUGHRBG6I3TC24YHP5Y3J7I6KH/ https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2020/Jan/21 https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202003-56 https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4602

Attack Complexity

LOW

Privileges Required

NONE

User Interaction Required

NONE

Scope

NONE

Confidentiality Impact

UNCHANGED

Integrity Impact

HIGH

Availability Impact

HIGH

Base Score

HIGH

Base Severity

6.8