Attacker Value
Unknown
(0 users assessed)
Exploitability
Unknown
(0 users assessed)
User Interaction
None
Privileges Required
Low
Attack Vector
Local
0

CVE-2020-8834

Disclosure Date: April 06, 2020
Add MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques that apply to this CVE.

Description

KVM in the Linux kernel on Power8 processors has a conflicting use of HSTATE_HOST_R1 to store r1 state in kvmppc_hventry plus in kvmppc{save,restore}_tm, leading to a stack corruption. Because of this, an attacker with the ability run code in kernel space of a guest VM can cause the host kernel to panic. There were two commits that, according to the reporter, introduced the vulnerability: f024ee098476 (“KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Pull out TM state save/restore into separate procedures”) 87a11bb6a7f7 (“KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Work around XER[SO] bug in fake suspend mode”) The former landed in 4.8, the latter in 4.17. This was fixed without realizing the impact in 4.18 with the following three commits, though it’s believed the first is the only strictly necessary commit: 6f597c6b63b6 (“KVM: PPC: Book3S PR: Add guest MSR parameter for kvmppc_save_tm()/kvmppc_restore_tm()”) 7b0e827c6970 (“KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Factor fake-suspend handling out of kvmppc_save/restore_tm”) 009c872a8bc4 (“KVM: PPC: Book3S PR: Move kvmppc_save_tm/kvmppc_restore_tm to separate file”)

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CVSS V3 Severity and Metrics
Base Score:
6.5 Medium
Impact Score:
4
Exploitability Score:
2
Vector:
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack Vector (AV):
Local
Attack Complexity (AC):
Low
Privileges Required (PR):
Low
User Interaction (UI):
None
Scope (S):
Changed
Confidentiality (C):
None
Integrity (I):
None
Availability (A):
High

General Information

Vendors

  • canonical,
  • linux,
  • opensuse

Products

  • leap 15.1,
  • linux kernel -,
  • ubuntu linux 16.04,
  • ubuntu linux 18.04

Additional Info

Technical Analysis