CVE-2021-4093

Description

A flaw was found in the KVM's AMD code for supporting the Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Encrypted State (SEV-ES). A KVM guest using SEV-ES can trigger out-of-bounds reads and writes in the host kernel via a malicious VMGEXIT for a string I/O instruction (for example, outs or ins) using the exit reason SVM_EXIT_IOIO. This issue results in a crash of the entire system or a potential guest-to-host escape scenario.

Statement

AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) is currently provided as a Technology Preview in RHEL and, therefore, unsupported for production use. For additional details please see https://access.redhat.com/articles/4491591 and https://access.redhat.com/support/offerings/techpreview.

Mitigation

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score8.28.8N/A
Attack VectorLocalLocalN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredHighLowN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeChangedChangedN/A
ConfidentialityHighHighN/A
Integrity ImpactHighHighN/A
Availability ImpactHighHighN/A

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

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

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Integrity

Technical Impact: Modify Memory; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands

Write operations could cause memory corruption. In some cases, an adversary can modify control data such as return addresses in order to execute unexpected code.

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

Attempting to access out-of-range, invalid, or unauthorized memory could cause the product to crash.

Other

Technical Impact: Unexpected State

Subsequent write operations can produce undefined or unexpected results.

Frequently Asked Questions

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