CVE-2018-12892

Description

From CVE.org

An issue was discovered in Xen 4.7 through 4.10.x. libxl fails to pass the readonly flag to qemu when setting up a SCSI disk, due to what was probably an erroneous merge conflict resolution. Malicious guest administrators or (in some situations) users may be able to write to supposedly read-only disk images. Only emulated SCSI disks (specified as "sd" in the libxl disk configuration, or an equivalent) are affected. IDE disks ("hd") are not affected (because attempts to make them readonly are rejected). Additionally, CDROM devices (that is, devices specified to be presented to the guest as CDROMs, regardless of the nature of the backing storage on the host) are not affected; they are always read only. Only systems using qemu-xen (rather than qemu-xen-traditional) as the device model version are vulnerable. Only systems using libxl or libxl-based toolstacks are vulnerable. (This includes xl, and libvirt with the libxl driver.) The vulnerability is present in Xen versions 4.7 and later. (In earlier versions, provided that the patch for XSA-142 has been applied, attempts to create read only disks are rejected.) If the host and guest together usually support PVHVM, the issue is exploitable only if the malicious guest administrator has control of the guest kernel or guest kernel command line.

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).

The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score7.79.9N/A
Attack VectorLocalNetworkN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredNoneLowN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeUnchangedChangedN/A
ConfidentialityHighHighN/A
Integrity ImpactHighHighN/A
Availability ImpactNoneHighN/A

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

NVD: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Confidentiality

Technical Impact: Read Application Data; Read Files or Directories

An attacker could read sensitive data, either by reading the data directly from a data store that is not properly restricted, or by accessing insufficiently-protected, privileged functionality to read the data.

Integrity

Technical Impact: Modify Application Data; Modify Files or Directories

An attacker could modify sensitive data, either by writing the data directly to a data store that is not properly restricted, or by accessing insufficiently-protected, privileged functionality to write the data.

Access Control

Technical Impact: Gain Privileges or Assume Identity; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands

When access control checks are not applied consistently - or not at all - an attacker could gain privileges and execute unauthorized code or commands by modifying or reading critical data directly, or by accessing insufficiently-protected, privileged functionality.

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank the Xen project for reporting this issue.

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