CVE-2018-12893
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Description
The CVE Program describes this issue as:
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.10.x. One of the fixes in XSA-260 added some safety checks to help prevent Xen livelocking with debug exceptions. Unfortunately, due to an oversight, at least one of these safety checks can be triggered by a guest. A malicious PV guest can crash Xen, leading to a Denial of Service. All Xen systems which have applied the XSA-260 fix are vulnerable. Only x86 systems are vulnerable. ARM systems are not vulnerable. Only x86 PV guests can exploit the vulnerability. x86 HVM and PVH guests cannot exploit the vulnerability. An attacker needs to be able to control hardware debugging facilities to exploit the vulnerability, but such permissions are typically available to unprivileged users.
Additional information
- Bugzilla 1590979: xen: x86 DB exception safety check can be triggered by a guest (XSA-265)
- CWE-266: Incorrect Privilege Assignment
- FAQ: Frequently asked questions about CVE-2018-12893
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
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).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
Red Hat | NVD | |
---|---|---|
CVSS v3 Base Score | 6.5 | 6.5 |
Attack Vector | Local | Local |
Attack Complexity | Low | Low |
Privileges Required | Low | Low |
User Interaction | None | None |
Scope | Changed | Changed |
Confidentiality Impact | None | None |
Integrity Impact | None | None |
Availability Impact | High | High |
CVSS v3 Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
Acknowledgements
Red Hat would like to thank the Xen project for reporting this issue. Upstream acknowledges Andrew Cooper (Citrix) as the original reporter.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?
For more information, see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/762393.
My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?
- "Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.
- "Affected" means that our Analysis Team has determined that this product is affected by this vulnerability and might release a fix to address this in the near future.
What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?
Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
- Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).
- Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
- Open a support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?
Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
- Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
- Open a support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
- Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on their complexity or limited lifecycle support. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.
What is a mitigation?
I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?
Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?
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