Buffer overflow in Xen

CVE-2023-46835

The current setup of the quarantine page tables assumes that the quarantine domain (dom_io) has been initialized with an address width of DEFAULT_DOMAIN_ADDRESS_WIDTH (48) and hence 4 page table levels. However dom_io being a PV domain gets the AMD-Vi IOMMU page tables levels based on the maximum (hot pluggable) RAM address, and hence on systems with no RAM above the 512GB mark only 3 page-table levels are configured in the IOMMU. On systems without RAM above the 512GB boundary amd_iommu_quarantine_init() will setup page tables for the scratch page with 4 levels, while the IOMMU will be configured to use 3 levels only, resulting in the last page table directory (PDE) effectively becoming a page table entry (PTE), and hence a device in quarantine mode gaining write access to the page destined to be a PDE. Due to this page table level mismatch, the sink page the device gets read/write access to is no longer cleared between device assignment, possibly leading to data leaks.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (18.7th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 19th percentile — 18.7% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2023-46835: held from 0.003 to 0.003.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.003 · change: 0.000

Affected products

  • Xen — versions consult Xen advisory XSA-445

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-46835?
CVE-2023-46835 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Xen, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2024-01-05.
How severe is CVE-2023-46835?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.