CVE-2023-46842 (GCVE-0-2023-46842)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2024-05-16 13:39 – Updated: 2025-11-04 17:12
VLAI?
Summary
Unlike 32-bit PV guests, HVM guests may switch freely between 64-bit and other modes. This in particular means that they may set registers used to pass 32-bit-mode hypercall arguments to values outside of the range 32-bit code would be able to set them to. When processing of hypercalls takes a considerable amount of time, the hypervisor may choose to invoke a hypercall continuation. Doing so involves putting (perhaps updated) hypercall arguments in respective registers. For guests not running in 64-bit mode this further involves a certain amount of translation of the values. Unfortunately internal sanity checking of these translated values assumes high halves of registers to always be clear when invoking a hypercall. When this is found not to be the case, it triggers a consistency check in the hypervisor and causes a crash.
Severity ?
6.5 (Medium)
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE
  • CWE-843 - Access of Resource Using Incompatible Type ('Type Confusion')
Assigner
XEN
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version
Xen Xen Unknown: consult Xen advisory XSA-454
Create a notification for this product.
Credits
This issue was discovered by Manuel Andreas of Technical University of Munich.
Show details on NVD website
To clipboard 

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              "confidentialityImpact": "NONE",
              "integrityImpact": "NONE",
              "privilegesRequired": "LOW",
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              "userInteraction": "NONE",
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                "id": "CVE-2023-46842",
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          "value": "All Xen versions from at least 3.2 onwards are vulnerable.  Earlier\nversions have not been inspected.\n\nOnly x86 systems are vulnerable.  Arm systems are not vulnerable.\n\nOnly HVM or PVH guests can leverage the vulnerability.  PV guests cannot\nleverage the vulnerability.\n"
        }
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        }
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      "title": "x86 HVM hypercalls may trigger Xen bug check",
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        }
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    "assignerShortName": "XEN",
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    "dateReserved": "2023-10-27T07:55:35.333Z",
    "dateUpdated": "2025-11-04T17:12:51.532Z",
    "state": "PUBLISHED"
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      "id": "CVE-2023-46842",
      "lastModified": "2024-12-04T17:15:11.343",
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      "published": "2024-05-16T14:15:08.317",
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}


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Sightings

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Nomenclature

  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
  • Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
  • Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
  • Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.



Detection rules are retrieved from Rulezet.