Xen 4.4.x, 4.5.x, and 4.6.x does not limit the number of printk console messages when reporting unimplemented hypercalls, which allows local guests to cause a denial of service via a sequence of (1) HYPERVISOR_physdev_op hypercalls, which are not properly handled in the do_physdev_op function in arch/arm/physdev.c, or (2) HYPERVISOR_hvm_op hypercalls, which are not properly handled in the do_hvm_op function in arch/arm/hvm.c.
The MITRE CVE dictionary describes this issue as:
Find out more about CVE-2015-7813 from the MITRE CVE dictionary dictionary and NIST NVD.
NOTE: The following CVSS v2 metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
| Base Score | 4.3 |
|---|---|
| Base Metrics | AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P |
| Access Vector | Network |
| Access Complexity | Medium |
| Authentication | None |
| Confidentiality Impact | None |
| Integrity Impact | None |
| Availability Impact | Partial |
Find out more about Red Hat support for the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
| Platform | Package | State |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 | xen | Not affected |
The problematic log messages are issued with priority Warning.
Therefore they can be rate limited by adding "loglvl=error/warning" to the hypervisor command line or suppressed entirely by adding "loglvl=error".
On systems where the guest kernel is controlled by the host rather than guest administrator, running only kernels which do not call these hypercalls will also prevent untrusted guest users from exploiting this issue. However untrusted guest administrators can still trigger it unless further steps are taken to prevent them from loading code into the kernel (e.g. by disabling loadable modules etc) or from using other mechanisms which allow them to run code at kernel privilege.
Vulmon