An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.12.x allowing ARM guest OS users to cause a denial of service or gain privileges by leveraging the erroneous enabling of interrupts. Interrupts are unconditionally unmasked in exception handlers. When an exception occurs on an ARM system which is handled without changing processor level, some interrupts are unconditionally enabled during exception entry. So exceptions which occur when interrupts are masked will effectively unmask the interrupts. A malicious guest might contrive to arrange for critical Xen code to run with interrupts erroneously enabled. This could lead to data corruption, denial of service, or possibly even privilege escalation. However a precise attack technique has not been identified.
This vulnerability carries a HIGH severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 8.8, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction requiring only low-level privileges . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), integrity (unauthorized modifications), and availability (service disruption) for affected systems. Impacting 3 products from xen, from debian, from fedoraproject organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.
First disclosed in 2019, this vulnerability was reported during a period defined by widespread IoT adoption challenges, mobile security concerns, and the emergence of advanced persistent threat (APT) techniques. Contemporary mitigation strategies focused on secure development practices and third-party component vetting.
2019-10-31T14:15:10.790
2024-11-21T04:33:14.000
Modified
CVSSv3.1: 8.8 (HIGH)
AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C
6.8
10.0
| Type | Vendor | Product | Version/Range | Vulnerable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating System | xen | xen | ≤ 4.12.1 | Yes |
| Operating System | debian | debian_linux | 9.0 | Yes |
| Operating System | debian | debian_linux | 10.0 | Yes |
| Operating System | fedoraproject | fedora | 29 | Yes |
| Operating System | fedoraproject | fedora | 30 | Yes |
| Operating System | fedoraproject | fedora | 31 | Yes |
SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For xen's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.