CVE-2014-0179
Description
It was found that libvirt passes the XML_PARSE_NOENT flag when parsing XML documents using the libxml2 library, in which case all XML entities in the parsed documents are expanded. A user able to force libvirtd to parse an XML document with an entity pointing to a file could use this flaw to read the contents of that file (limited to libvirt as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7); parsing an XML document with an entity pointing to a special file that blocks on read access could cause libvirtd to hang indefinitely, resulting in a denial of service on the system.
Statement
This issue affects the versions of libvirt as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, however the impact is limited to denial of service since it does not support fine grained access control.
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 v2 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 3.3 | 1.9 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Adjacent Network | Local | N/A |
| Access Complexity | Low | Medium | N/A |
| Authentication | None | None | N/A |
| Confidentiality Impact | None | None | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | None | N/A |
| Availability Impact | Partial | Partial | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: AV:A/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
NVD: AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Application Data; Read Files or Directories
If the attacker is able to include a crafted DTD and a default entity resolver is enabled, the attacker may be able to access arbitrary files on the system. By submitting an XML file that defines an external entity with a file:// URI, an attacker can cause the processing application to read the contents of a local file. For example, a URI such as "file:///c:/winnt/win.ini" designates (in Windows) the file C:\Winnt\win.ini, or file:///etc/passwd designates the password file in Unix-based systems. Once the content of the URI is read, it is fed back into the application that is processing the XML. This application may echo back the data (e.g., in an error message), thereby exposing the file contents.
Integrity
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
An attacker may supply a crafted DTD using URIs with schemes such as http://, forcing the application to make outgoing HTTP requests to servers that the attacker cannot reach directly, which can be used to bypass firewall restrictions; hide the source of attacks such as port scanning; or otherwise leverage the server's trust relationship with other entities.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)
The product could consume excessive CPU cycles or memory using a URI that points to a large file, or a device that always returns data such as /dev/random. Alternately, the URI could reference a file that contains many nested or recursive entity references to further slow down parsing.
Acknowledgements
Upstream acknowledges Daniel P. Berrange and Richard Jones as the original reporters.
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